Masquerade
by moonlighten
Summary: The Kirklands have been supervillains for generations. They're rich, powerful, and no superhero has ever been able to defeat them. Until now. Maybe. If he ever manages to control his powers properly and learn a little subtlety, then the newest superhero on the scene might have a fighting chance, at least. (Superhero AU; America/England, Scotland/France, Wales/Romano.)
1. Chapter 1

**Notes:**  
Been struggling with writer's block, and thought trying something a little different might help... So decided to write this, which isn't really all that different at all, seeing as though I've used a very similiar AU set-up for one of my Emmerdale fics. That was so much fun to plot, though, that I wanted to see how it would work with Hetalia.

(And thus copying over my explanatory notes from that Emmerdale fic...)

This is very loosely inspired by/a fusion of the Venture Bros. setting, in that the Kirklands belong to the Guild of Calamitous Intent (which here has various local branches, it's worldwide on the show, as far as I can tell), because I love the Venture Bros. approach to superheroes and, especially, supervillains. The Guild is an organisation of supervillains, who seem to largely treat villainy as a regular day job, and there's tonnes of bureaucracy, and lots of rules and regulations governing their behaviour. The Guild also approves superheroes to be assigned supervillains, and provides benefits, support etc. to the villains. (No Venture Bros. characters involved, though, just Hetalia.)

The heroes on the show don't seem to have an analogous organisation, but they have one here: the League.

America/England and Scotland/France will be the main pairings, but there may well be more added later (I'm not sure I'll be able to resist including Wales/Romano when the plot wends around that way).  
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* * *

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Four times a year, Grandfather arranges for the Kirkland estate to be bedecked in lights and seasonally-appropriate decorations, fires up the kitchen staff, orders a small lakes'-worth of champagne, and invites anyone who's anyone north of the Watford Gap to join him in hobnobbing and consuming their own weight in fancy canapés.

Invitations to them, Arthur is given to understand, are highly coveted, with Guild up-and-comers and social climbers of all stripes willing to sell their own grandmothers for the chance of getting their hands on one. Presumably, then, they are the highlight of _someone_ ' _s_ calendar.

They're certainly not a highlight of his.

He has been made to attend each and every one since he was five years old. When he was a child, he and his brothers were expected to tag along in Grandfather's wake when he greeted his guests, and smile winsomely as they cooed over how 'adorable' they all looked in their tiny suits and bow ties.

Although the cooing declined precipitously as they became teenagers and growth spurts and outbreaks of spots set in, the tagging along continued, and they were expected to smile courteously whilst Grandfather boasted about their exam results and successes on the rugby field.

Nowadays, they're expected to act as little better than glorified - and unpaid - security.

As befits a member of the Guild of Calamitous Intent's ruling Council of 13, Grandfather has a veritable army of minions and henchmen under his command, but minions and henchmen are entitled to time and a half pay for all functions outside business hours, whereas family can be made to work for free. The Kirkland fortune wouldn't be as impressive as it is, Grandfather is fond of telling anyone who cares to listen, if he wasn't willing to cut a few corners when needs be.

So now Arthur smiles just as courteously as he ever did before whilst he mingles, makes small talk, and eats canapés, but he maintains a close watch on Grandfather's guests, too.

Given that at least half of his guests are high-ranking supervillains, Grandfather's parties are like catnip for superheroes looking to make a name for themselves, and at least one of them will undoubtedly swoop in at some point during the evening, full of adrenaline, bravado, and righteous indignation, shooting their laser eye-beams or frost breath around willy-nilly with no care and consideration for the health and well-being of either the civilian half of the guests or Grandfather's antique collection.

And as those civilians are mostly local dignitaries, business owners, and minor celebrities, they're likely to attract the attention of the bloody Frog, as well; a perennial, sticky-fingered thorn in the collective Kirkland side.

Thankfully, Arthur hasn't noticed his smug, Gallic face amongst the gathered crowds milling around the manor, nor has he heard the tell-tale whoosh of an approaching superhero in flight, but as he pushes and excuse-me-sorrys his way through the throng in the formal dining room, he spots a very suspicious-looking figure, lurking by the giant ice sculpture bust of Grandfather that's sneering imperiously down on the room.

It's the man's suit that catches his eye more than anything else. The jacket sits too snugly across his broad shoulders, the sleeves are just a fraction too short, and its elbows and also the knees of the man's trousers are shiny, suggestive of both age and substandard fabric. His shirt is no better - a timeworn shade of off-white and frayed at the collar - and his pink, yellow and green tie is a garish assault on good taste.

All in all, he's the worst-dressed person Arthur has seen tonight, by quite a sizeable margin. Intrigued, he draws closer.

The man visibly pales as Arthur approaches, and his eyes round anxiously behind his thick rimmed glasses, but he stands his ground regardless, and when Arthur holds his hand out to shake, the man grasps it without hesitation. Despite his obvious nervousness, his grip is firm and assured.

Slightly _too_ firm, actually. Arthur's knuckles soon start to ache, and he drops the handshake a little more quickly than is perhaps polite.

"Arthur Kirkland," he says, summoning up a warmer smile than the brittle one he's been faking for hours in an effort to compensate for the incivility. "And you are?"

The man blinks at him rapidly, his mouth agape; clearly caught off-guard. "Alfred," he says eventually. "Alfred Jones."

The pause is telling, and Arthur very much doubts it's his real name. That's less suspicious than his suit, though. Most of the people Arthur knows use a pseudonym more often than not.

"I don't think we've had the pleasure of meeting before," he says. "Are you a friend of my grandfather's?"

"No, I'm..." Alfred swipes the tip of his tongue across his bottom lip to wet it, and then swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing sharply. "I'm with the paper."

"The paper?" Arthur echoes, surprised. Grandfather hadn't mentioned there would be any journalists in attendance tonight. "Which one?"

"Um, the local one."

"The Chester Chronicle?" Arthur says, to which Alfred nods vigorously.

Arthur supposes that makes more sense than his initial assumption that, based on Alfred's accent, he must write for an American newspaper. Although Grandfather does have some professional clout in the North West, and plenty of supervillain clout in the UK - and an over-inflated opinion about the importance of both, to Arthur's mind - it's probably not strong enough to have reached across the Atlantic. No-one in America, he's certain, is likely to be in the least bit interested in reading about one of Grandfather's parties.

It's doubtful that many people in Chester are, either, but the _Chronicle_ do always send someone to cover Grandfather's annual charity ball, at least, if only so they can capture the requisite photograph of Grandfather handing a comically over-sized cheque to the local worthy du jour.

They've never bothered to report on the Christmas party before, though. When Arthur mentions that oversight to Alfred, he shrugs and says, "Slow news week."

Which sounds plausible enough, and Alfred _seems_ plausible enough. Obviously, he's out of his depth, but then he looks to be a few years younger than Arthur himself, probably no older than twenty-two or so, and thus hardly a veteran reporter. This could well be his first solo assignment, which seems somewhat unfair of the _Chronicle_. A Kirkland get-together could end up being a trial by fire.

Whilst he may feel a little sorry for the man, he still doesn't feel ready to entirely trust him at his word. He's definitely not an associate of the Frog's - the man's a double-crossing snake, and black-listed by the Guild as a consequence; no supervillain, aspiring or otherwise, would dare to work with him now - and Arthur very much doubts that he's a superhero. Not nearly enough muscles, and superhero's tend to be simple creatures, not given to subterfuge.

But, nonetheles, something about Alfred niggles; seems a little off. The pauses in his speech, the slight waver in his voice, and the way his gaze keeps darting around the room, never quite meeting Arthur's.

The feeling isn't strong enough that Arthur thinks it necessary to start flinging out accusations of perfidy and demanding Alfred be thrown out of the manor, but it _is_ there. Arthur resolves to be vigilant, and keep a careful eye on Alfred for the rest of the night.  
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* * *

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Arthur's resolution lasts for all of ten minutes, whereupon he's cornered by The Shrike - one of his Grandfather's oldest friends, and fellow member of the UK Council of 13 - who bends his ear at great and tedious length about various ailments, his grandchildren, and his grandchildren's various ailments. Far from being careful, Arthur's eyes soon glaze over and he loses sight of Alfred amongst the crowd of partygoers surrounding them.

Half an hour later, Arthur's mobile starts beeping urgently; a particularly ear-splitting tone set to alert him when the manor's alarm system has been tripped.

A glance at its screen informs him that their intruder is in Grandfather's study: the Frog's favoured looting location whenever he manages to break in.

"Sorry, I've got to go," Arthur tells The Shrike, nodding towards his phone. "Looks like we might have a spot of bother upstairs."

He takes the concealed lift from the kitchen pantry to the third floor library, casts a silencing spell to muffle his footsteps as he sneaks down the hallway outside, and then another on the study door's hinges before he eases it open.

He needn't have bothered, though, because the intruder is making enough noise on his own to camoflage the passage of a herd of tap-dancing elephants; rifling through drawers and then throwing their contents over his shoulder, seemingly without a care for how they clatter against the parquet floor.

 _This_ stranger is unmistakably a superhero; clad in an obscenely tight white suit with red stripes running down its back, drawing the eye inexorably down towards the equally taut lines of his arse, and blue stars scattered across its shoulders.

Arthur clears his throat meaningfully.

The superhero continues muttering under his breath and flinging files around with abandon.

Arthur takes another couple of steps closer, and clears his throat again, then, his patience thinning as he continues to be ignored, snaps, "Excuse me, can I help you with something?"

The superhero freezes for an instant, and then wheels around on his heel to present his face to Arthur. His practically _bare_ face. He's only wearing a tiny electric blue domino mask and...

Arthur groans, and then gestures towards his own face, drawing circles in the air just in front of his eyes with an extended index finger. "You're still wearing your glasses," he says.

Alfred pales again, quickly snatches off the offending eyewear, and then squints at Arthur myopically. Clearly, they weren't just part of some mild-mannered-reporter disguise, but actually required to correct his vision.

"You've not being doing this very long, I take it," Arthur says, and not without a degree of sympathy. He's only been in the supervillain game for a couple of years himself - Grandfather had insisted he finish uni before he joined the family business - and he'd royally bollocksed up his first couple of heists.

Alfred shakes his head, smiling ruefully. "It's only my second time out."

Novice or no, Guild and League guidelines both state that a superhero apprehended whilst performing a heroic deed should be taken into the custody of whichever supervillain was lucky enough to catch them - whether or not they're official Arches - until such time as the hero can effect a daring escape (or twelve hours has elapsed, whichever is the shorter duration).

And as he's so green about the gills, Arthur has no intention of subjecting him to anything other than the lightest of perils - perhaps a spell suspended by his ankles above the tank of very well-fed piranhas, or tied beneath the exceedingly blunt and slow-swinging scythe - but rules are rules, and he has to do _something_.

"You'll know better next time, won't you," Arthur says. "Now, come on" - he reaches out and takes hold of Alfred's wrist - "I'll take you down to the dungeons, and—"

"To the _what?_ " Alfred's eyes widen once more beneath his tiny mask.

"The dungeon," Arthur repeats slowly and carefully. He hadn't realised it could be a confusing concept, but Alfred certainly looks extremely bemused by it. "Until such time as you break free, et cetera, et cetera."

When he tries to tug Alfred forward, Alfred digs his heels in and refuses to be moved. "I'm not going to just follow you to a _dungeon_ ," he says, sounding incredulous. "You're a _supervillain_."

"Well, yes. That is the point of all this," Arthur says. "Punishment for the commission of an heroic act, and so on. You should know that already. Haven't you read your League handbook?"

Alfred's blank look suggests that he hasn't, or, at the very least, hasn't got to that particular subsection yet. Just like a hero to rush off half-cocked and underprepared, riding high on the virtue of their own do-goodery.

Arthur sighs heavily. "Look, seeing as though you're so new to this, I'll make it as easy as I can for you. I'll restrain you with the Grade C chains - one good tap, and they'll just fall to pieces - and put you in cell 5. There's a hidden escape tunnel beneath the fourth tile on the right of the door. You'll be free within an hour, at most. We have to go by the book, whether you've read it or not." He holds out his free hand, palm flat, towards Alfred. "Now, if you'll give me your League card, I can get all the paperwork sorted out, too."

A faint blush spreads across Alfred's cheeks. "My League... Oh, I, um... I left my wallet in my other pants." He pats the skin-tight fabric covering his right thigh. "Not enough room for pockets in this costume."

Arthur has to clear his throat yet again. It suddenly feels very dry. "Quite," he manages to squeak out after averting his eyes from the distracting movements of Alfred's hand. "It's okay, we can work around it. If you let me know your superhero alias, I can look you up in the Guild records; get your membership number from there."

"It's Captain..." Although he'd started off with a great deal of conviction, Alfred quickly falters into silence. After a moment of furrowed-brow contemplation, he finishes with a tentative-sounding, "Awesome?"

"Captain Awesome?" Arthur can't recall ever having heard the name before, or having read it in any recent Guild communications. The niggle of doubt he'd felt when he'd first met Alfred starts squirming into life at the back of his mind again. "Who's your Arch?"

Alfred's frown deepens. "The Crimson Terror," he offers, even more tentatively than before.

Arthur _knows_ there isn't a supervillain named that operating in the UK. Or anywhere else for that matter. The doubt blossoms into terror.

Alfred could very well be an unlicenced hero. One unbound by the rules of either the Guild or the League. A vigilante. A loose cannon. _Dangerous_.

He fumbles in his jacket pocket, meaning to call Alasdair or Dylan for back-up, but before his trembling fingers can get a good grip on it, Alfred twists his body around, effortlessly wrenching himself free of Arthur's hold on his wrist.

His shoulder knocks against Arthur's as he does so, striking with all the force of a train at full speed, and that glancing blow sends Arthur flying.

He lands flat on his back, and heavily enough that it forces all the air from his lungs. Beyond the loud, concussed ringing in his ears, he thinks he can hear the faint, muted beat of Alfred's retreating footsteps, and then an even fainter, "Sorry!"


	2. Chapter 2

Francis has stolen priceless jewels unnoticed from the necks of women whilst they were in the midst of conversation with him. He's breached the deepest vaults of the most secure Swiss banks, cleared them out, and slipped away again without triggering a single alarm. He's liberated paintings from the Louvre, National Gallery, and Musee d'Orsay simply because he'd thought they'd look better hanging on the wall of his apartment.

And no-one has ever caught so much as a glimpse of him at the scene of any of his many crimes, and the name Francis Bonnefoy is unblemished by suspicion. He's a consummate professional, at the top of his game, and one of the finest master thieves in the business.

He is a ghost.

Except where the Kirklands are concerned. Not once in his eleven years of cat burglary has he managed to break into their manor and remain undetected. Thirty-seven attempted robberies, by his last count, and each one of them foiled.

Tonight, he thought his luck might finally have changed. Kirklands major and minor were all occupied with their dreary party downstairs, and the top three floors of the house were deserted; the minions and henchmen that usually patrolled the halls absent thanks to their employer's parsimony.

Then, when he reached grand-père Kirkland's study, he 'd discovered that some enterprising larcenist must have already tried their hand at pilfering from it earlier in the evening. The complex lock that usually fastened the door had been battered by what looked to be some blunt object of great weight swung with massive force - a more expedient entry than Francis could have effected with his lockpicks, but far too crude for his tastes - and smashed to pieces.

The infrared motion sensor detectors beyond have suffered the same fate, and it appears that his trespassing predecessor bought himself time enough to thoroughly ransack the room. Loose papers and shards of broken glass and pottery are strewn haphazardly across the floor, and the bookshelves that run the full length of the longest wall have been denuded of their contents, the books they once held tossed into a messy pile by the door with a complete disregard for the integrity of their delicate spines.

Francis' stomach tightens, his heart beats a wild, erratic rhythm in his chest, but when he reaches inside the central drawer of grand-père Kirkland's beautiful, walnut Baroque desk, he is relieved to find that the secret compartment within has not been disturbed.

Its lock is a magical one, according to an ex-henchman of the Kirklands whom Francis had spent an incredibly satisfying and illuminating night with in Prague, and Francis had bitten back his sceptism, swallowed down his distaste, and employed a practitioner of that - ridiculous - art to create him a key for it.

The... 'magician' had assured him that it would work to open any lock, despite not looking like any sort of key that Francis has ever seen. It's nothing more than a flat rectangle of pale wood, as long as Francis' middle finger and only a little broader, with a spiral of strange symbols etched on one side.

The compartment has no keyhole that Francis can see, nor any sort of slot or depression into which the wood can be placed. Lacking any better ideas on how to proceed, Francis presses the 'key' to the front of the compartment.

Its door swings open silently, disgorging a puff of shimmering mist that smells faintly of sulphur.

The cloud soon disperses, revealing a book bound in cracked red leather. Strange. All of Francis' research had suggested that there should be three.

He picks the book up and leafs through its yellowed, dog-eared pages. They're covered in calligraphed text, interspersed with scrawled marginalia and exquisite illuminations, and Francis cannot read a single word of it. He doesn't even recognise the language it's written in.

He knows someone who will be able to, though, so he carefully slides the book into the pouch hanging on his belt. He then shines his little torch into the depths of the compartment, hoping to uncover the other two volumes that he's still certain should be there.

They are not, but he does spot a small black velvet bag nestled in the back corner of the compartment. He fishes it out, opens its drawstrings, and peers inside. It's filled with with round yellow stones that glow softly from within, and some oddly shaped snips of metal. Francis has no idea what their purpose could be, but as they were stored alongside the book, he surmises that they might be useful. He drops the bag into his pouch, too.

Then he lets out the breath he'd held when he turned on his torch in a long sigh. That's it. Job done, at last. After five years, and thirty-seven attempts, he finally has what he's been searching for. He's won.

In the most tediously easy and anti-climactic way, to be sure, but he's won.

After giving silent thanks to the mysterious and ham-handed benefactor who made everything possible, he creeps out of the study and along the corridor outside it, then makes his escape out of the same, high window in the library he'd entered the manor by.

Rappelling down the side of the building lands him in the far western corner of the formal gardens, leaving only the lawn and walled orchard to navigate before he's home free, and nary a Kirkland in sight.

From the rhododendron bushes to his side, something that sounds terrifyingly large looses a deep growl.  
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* * *

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"I'd been wondering when you were going to put in an appearance," a very familiar voice calls out from far below Francis. "Grandfather thought you must have decided to give us a miss this year. He was very disappointed."

For the first time in his life, Francis could gladly kiss Alasdair Kirkland.

He's been stuck halfway up an oak tree for what feels like hours, chased there by the three _things_ that are now circling around the thick base of its trunk. Superficially, the _things_ resemble dogs, but they're the size of calves, covered in shaggy green - green! - hair, and their eyes are enormous, spilling forth a sickening, blood-red light.

There's a branch digging deep into the middle of his back, and the one he's sitting on is creaking alarmingly. If the fall didn't kill him when it broke, the _things_ would doubtless be devour him within seconds.

Thankfully, though he may be a pariah to the Guild of late, and though he may have vowed to wreak bloody vengeance against the entire Kirkland clan in front of the Council of 13, the Kirklands are honourable, in their own, idiosyncratic way, and sticklers for the rules.

Although he has transgressed Guild laws, he is entitled to plead his case to the Council of 13, and then be judged in as fair a trial as the Guild is able and willing to provide.

Allowing him to be torn limb from limb by demonic calf-dog-beasts just wouldn't be playing fair, and the Kirklands - for all their other, numerous and egregious, faults - wouldn't dream of stooping to that base level.

"Ah, well, you know me, _mon cher_ ," Francis calls back to Alasdair. "Always fashionably late to the party."

Alasdair doesn't react in any way to Francis' weak joke, but then he never does. The man has no discernible sense of humour. "Are you going to come down?" he asks instead.

"That depends entirely on whether or not you're willing to call off your... pets," Francis says.

Alasdair hesitates for long enough that Francis begins to fear that he's going to break with long-standing family tradition and let him suffer extrajudicial punishment after all, but eventually he does bark out a few words in another language Francis doesn't recognise.

The _things_ stop their pacing immediately and then trot away across the garden, in the direction of the old stables.

"That was _Gàidhlig_ ," Alasdair says in answer to the question Francis hadn't cared enough to ask. "They're _Cù Sìth_. Tame ones. One of Grandfather's friends breeds them up in the Highlands. He moved there after he retired from the Guild."

"Really?" Francis drawls, barely managing to keep the tremor from his voice. He'd always found the magic and supernatural creatures that the Kirklands surround themselves with disquieting, even in better times, and the idea that there's probably an entire _pack_ of those _things_ roaming around, that someone's deliberately breeding _more_ of them, is a horrifying one to contemplate. "How marvellous."

He has no choice, then, but to clamber down from the tree, and as soon as his feet touch the ground, Alasdair grabs hold of his shoulder.

And Francis has no choice but to allow himself to be dragged along after Alasdair when he sets off trudging back towards the house, because he knows from experience that there's no use trying to fight against him. When he wants to be, Alasdair is an immovable object; a six-foot-two block of solid muscle.

Francis has long believed that same muscle extends to the inside of his skull, too, judging by the man's deficiencies in both imagination and conversation. How he'd managed to graduate with a first from Oxford is a perpetual mystery to Francis, though he does suspect that greased palms might have played a significant role. He's certainly never espoused an original thought in Francis' company.

They'd first met at seventeen, and Francis had immediately been struck by how handsome Alasdair was, and then very soon after, by the desire to get to know him better and, hopefully, much more intimately.

That desire didn't even survive the full two hours they'd been left to 'entertain each other' for whilst Francis' mother and Alasdair's grandfather talked Guild business. Francis had tried to talk to him, but received only grunted monosyllables in response. At first, Francis had assumed him to be shy, but as he showed no signs of that otherwise - he didn't blush, or fidget, or avoid Francis' eyes - Francis eventually concluded that he was, much to his disappointment, simply unspeakably dull.

Alasdair has done nothing during the twelve years of their acquaintance between then and now to disabuse Francis of that notion. In fact, he has become ever more inscrutable and taciturn as he ages. Although that's no longer disappointing to Francis, it _is_ troublesome in it's own way.

The other Kirklands are laughably easy to rile. Both Arthur and grand-père Kirkland take spluttering offense whenever Francis flirts with them, and Dylan gets adorably flustered, and Francis has used those reactions, those moments of distraction, to his advantage when he's fallen into their clutches in the past.

Normally, Alasdair just ignores him, but Francis doesn't have any other weapons at his disposal right now, and it can't hurt to try.

"I always look forward to you manhandling me, _mon cher_ ," he purrs, looking up at Alasdair through fluttering lashes. "You have such lovely strong hands."

Nothing. Not a single flicker of mouth or brow mars the rigid serenity of Alasdair's stony expression. Francis sighs, and resigns himself to being hauled off to the dungeon where, Alasdair informs him, grand-père Kirkland will come and 'deal with him' once his guests have left.  
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* * *

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Even though Francis had failed at doing so, _something_ must have distracted Alasdair, because he not only restrains him with the Grade C chains - which might as well be constructed from papier-mâché - but also throws him in cell five, with its convenient escape hatch only a hand's-breadth away.

Francis is vaulting over the wall that borders the Kirkland estate no more than ten minutes later, unharmed, and with the pouch that Alasdair had somehow forgotten to confiscate still firmly attached to his belt.

Well and truly home free this time.

For two strides, at least. Before he can take another, strong arms wrap around his chest from behind, tight and unyielding, and a stern voice intones, "Halt, evil-doer."

Francis snorts, thinking it must be a joke. Not even the most earnest of superheroes could possibly say such a thing in seriousness.

He tilts his head back, and meets the gaze of a pair of blue, bespectacled eyes set in a boyish face which looks completely, _hilariously_ sincere.

Francis bursts into laughter so hard that he can't catch enough breath to struggle or even protest when the superhero plucks him up off his feet, slings him over his shoulder, and starts to carry him away.


	3. Chapter 3

Alasdair finds his grandfather in the ballroom, where he's recounting how he once managed to defeat his Arch, Power-Man, armed only with a paperclip and two rubber bands to a gaggle of mid-level supervillain sycophants.

Grandfather has trotted out the same story at every single Guild function and get-together he's attended since the turn of the millennium, and he's told it in exactly the same way each time - one hand holding a glass of brandy pressed close to his chest, the other swooping through the air as he describes every feint, blow and parry of their fight, his fat cigar leaving thick contrails of smoke hanging in the air behind it - but still his admirers hang rapt on every word, oohing and aahing and gasping whenever Grandfather makes one of his regularly scheduled pauses in the narrative, carefully-chosen to elicit just such a response.

It's quite a pathetic sight.

Alasdair elbows his way to the front of the crowd, loudly clears his throat and even waves to try and attract Grandfather's attention, but the old bastard ignores him until he reaches the denouement of his tale, wherein Power-Man is lying in a battered and humiliated heap at his feet, begging for mercy.

Some obsequious fucker or other breaks into actual, honest-to-god _applause_ at the end of it, and Grandfather ducks his head, as though to disguise a blush that isn't actually there. His assertions afterward that his victory was "All in a day's work," and, "Nothing special," are just as false, as all of Grandfather's displays of modesty are. No-one thinks better of Grandfather's accomplishments that the man himself.

When the congratulations and expressions of admiration finally die down, Grandfather disperses his hangers-on with a few, soft words of farewell that are completely at odds with the imperious flick of the wrist that accompanies them.

As soon as the other supervillains have scattered, Grandfather discards the faint smile he'd been wearing, straightens his shoulders out of their bashful stoop, and he glares at Alasdair with all of his usual fiercely-concentrated intensity.

"Well?" he demands. "Was it him?"

"It was," Alasdair says. "The _Cù Sìth_ had him treed over by the hedge maze."

"And was he coming in or going out?"

"Coming in," Alasdair says, even though he genuinely has no clue what the truth of the matter had been. He does know what Grandfather would prefer to hear, though.

Grandfather's eyes narrow suspiciously, nonetheless. "Are you sure?" he asks. "He wasn't carrying anything?"

Alasdair goes out of his way to avoid looking at Francis too closely from the shoulders down. Or the chin up. He could have been cradling Grandfather's entire art collection in his arms, and Alasdair likely wouldn't have noticed. His neck, the only safe harbour for Alasdair's eyes nowadays, hadn't been particularly illuminating on that score.

"No," he says anyway, because what Grandfather doesn't know won't get Alasdair exiled to Antarctica for the rest of his natural, doomed to freezing his bollocks off in the underground lair where Grandfather sends all of his minions who have displeased him.

"He could have had something tucked away in that froofy little utility belt of his," Grandfather says. "You did check that, didn't you?"

As Francis' utility belt is situated slap-bang in the middle of the danger zone that is his body, Alasdair hadn't so much as glanced at it, never mind _touched_ it. "Yes, Grandfather," he says.

"And you patted him down?"

Alasdair's mind wipes clean of almost all thought at the mere idea of that. After a moment's stunned and increasingly uncomfortable silence, he eventually manages to scrape together enough of his meagre, remaining resources to stammer out, "No... No need. He was wearing that catsuit of his, and, well..."

Well, it might as well be _painted_ on, which is the reason Alasdair has to be very guarded with his looking in the first place.

"Nowhere to hide anything in _that_ , is there? Man's a crass exhibitionist," Grandfather says, his nose wrinkling in distaste. "And you put him in the dungeons?"

That's one thing that Alsadair doesn't need lie about or obfuscate. "Yes, Grandfather."

"I'll look forward to talking to him there later." Grandfather aims a single sharp nod Alasdair's way, which is as close to any sort of thanks or appreciation for his work as he's ever likely to get, and then adds, "Go find your brothers, and collect their reports. I want you to meet me back here in no more than twenty minutes to deliver them. Understood?"

"Yes, Grandfather."

"And then you're to resume your patrol. No reason to get complacent even if we have got the Frog under lock and key, is there?"

"No, Grandfather."

"Right, then," Grandfather says, dismissing Alasdair with the exact same brusque gesture he had used on his underlings earlier. "Hop to it."

"Yes, Grandfather," Alasdair says, swivelling compliantly on his heel.

 _Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir._

 _Baa,_ fucking _baa_.

As Michael will probably have secreted himself - along with a book and pilfered bottle of champagne - in one of his many hidey-holes at the very beginning of the party, to avoid the horror of perhaps having to speak to someone he's not directly related to, he won't have seen anything useful and there seems little point in attempting to seek him out. Instead, Alasdair heads towards the billiard room, where he'd last seen Dylan.

His brother is, as Alasdair suspected, still there, though he is no longer clutching a bottle of beer in a death-like grip as he leans stiffly against the small bar there in a failed effort at looking nonchalant and at perfect ease in his surroundings.

Now, he has his head bowed over his phone, and is frowning unhappily down at it.

"It was beeping at me about half an hour ago," he says by way of explanation for his behaviour when Alasdair joins him and breaks him from his reverie with a swift elbow to the side. "I think one of the alarms upstairs was tripped, but I can't find where it's supposed to tell you which one it was. There's just all these times listed, and little pictures of clock faces..."

Alasdair snatches the mobile from his brother's hand, because Dylan can't really be trusted to work any technology more complex than a calculator. "Wrong sort of alarm, you numpty. Jesus, _look_ ," he says, for easily the hundredth time in the six months since Dylan first received his newest work phone, "it's simple enough."

He opens the correct app, making sure, yet a-fucking-gain that Dylan is watching him carefully throughout, then examines the map of the house that the screen displays.

"The study," says Dylan, whose map-reading is marginally better than his phone-navigation, at least.

"Come on," Alasdair says. "We'd best check it out."  
-

* * *

-  
Grandfather's study looks, quite literally, as if a bomb has hit it: the door listing on its hinges, detritus littering the floor, and every drawer and door on Grandfather's desk hanging wide open.

Including the secret one. The one sealed tight with a supposedly impenetrable magical lock. The one Alasdair has never been allowed to see beyond.

He falls to his knees in front of it, and his stomach feels to fall even lower; tense, and cold, and lurching. The compartment that door had concealed contains nothing but a light coating of dust, excepting a small, rectangular clear patch at the centre of it, where something had obviously once been resting.

"Shit," Alasdair says, letting his head fall forward to bang against the side of the desk. He doesn't even feel the impact. "Shit, shit, _shit_."

"What is it?" Dylan asks, hurrying forward to drop into a crouch at Alasdair's side. "What have...?" He trails into silence as he too inspects the compartment and notices that same, damning space inside. "Fucking hell," he says, his voice breaking high and thin. "What did he keep in there? Do you know?"

"Not a clue," Alasdair says. "Must have been pretty fucking important, though, given the lengths he goes to to keep it hidden."

Dylan's eyes quickly dart away from the empty compartment, and he starts nipping at the side of his thumbnail, as he always does when he's unsettled. "Who do you think could have done this, Aly?" he asks.

"Well," Alasdair says, drawing out the word as long as he can because he doesn't really want to reach its end and have to confess. "I did catch Fran... the Frog sneaking around outside earlier."

"You did?" Dylan perks up a little. "So he's down in the dungeons, then?"

Alasdair checks the time on his phone. It's been almost quarter of an hour since he locked Francis up. He'll be long gone by now, no doubt. "Probably not any more," he says.

Dylan groans. "You put him in cell five, didn't you."

It's not a question; Dylan knows him too well for that.

It might have been a long time since they were... Well, he and Francis were never _friends_ , precisely, but once upon a time they were _friendly_ , or, at least, weren't the sworn enemies they're supposed to be now. Alasdair can hardly be blamed for harbouring some... _fond_ feelings for the man. And Dylan definitely wouldn't be the one to do so.

"I would have done the same thing," Dylan says, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly.

Alasdair knows it's no empty reassurance, as neither of them trust Grandfather where Francis is concerned. They've admitted that much to each other; quietly, obliquely, and far away from the many prying eyes and ears in Grandfather's employ.

After all, Francis' mother had up and vanished from those very same dungeons five years ago, never to be seen or heard of again. Francis certainly seems to believe that Grandfather had a hand in her disappearance - by all accounts, he'd announced his suspicions in front of the entire Council of 13, Grandfather included - but no-one in the Guild believed that good old George Kirkland, vaunted in the supervillain community for his _honour_ and _integrity_ , could possibly be involved in such a thing. Turning against one of his own? It was unthinkable.

Francis' claims _were_ investigated, but only perfunctorily and very soon dismissed. Consequently, Francis broke with the Guild and their rules, and Alasdair and Dylan began to wonder.

Alasdair pushes the compartment door closed with one finger, and it melds seamlessly together with the wood surrounding it, leaving no indication that it's there at all. "We can only hope that he doesn't check inside it very often," he says. "Might buy us enough time to retrieve... whatever it was that was in there before he ever notices it's gone."

"Let's hope so," Dylan says, with a small, tremulous smile.

There'll be hell to pay if they can't, and it'll fall on both Alasdair and Dylan's heads for their failure to properly work their phones and secure master thieves, respectively.

"You Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo all this crap off the floor, I'll go and fetch my toolbox; see if I can get the lock and sensors fixed up."

Dylan nods his assent, and then straightens up and spreads his fingers wide, preparing to cast magic. Alasdair leaves him to it, and heads out with the intention of going down to his workshop in the cellar.

He only gets as far as the bathroom just before the stairs, however, because he hears a faint noise emanating from within it. Even though the third floor is out of bounds for the night, it's likely just one of Grandfather's guests who's either taken a wrong turn, or else is too drunk to care about that stipulation. Francis is surely too much of a professional to return to the scene of the crime, but Alasdair could be lucky. He might have slipped up, just this once.

He cautiously eases the door open slightly, and peers through the gap it creates. Disappointingly, he sees only Arthur kneeling hunched over the toilet, his arms wrapped around the bowl.

Alasdair throws the door open the rest of the way, strides inside the bathroom, and slaps his brother hard in centre of his arched back. "Too much champagne, Wart?" he asks with feigned sympathy.

"Keep your fucking voice down," Arthur snaps. "My head's pounding. And no," he adds, sounding primly offended, "that's not because I'm _drunk_. I got accosted by a superhero in Grandfather's study."

"A superhero?" Alasdair asks, intrigued. That could solve everything. "Which one?"

Francis might well have been 'coming in' rather than 'going out', and not actually their culprit, after all. A superhero would likely give up their spoils far more easily, given the right sob story and a quick tug on their heartstrings.

"Well, he said his name was Alfred Jones," Arthur says. "Or 'Captain Awesome', if you prefer."

"Never heard of him," Alasdair says, shaking his head.

"Neither have I. I think he might be unlicensed."

"Fantastic." Alasdair sighs deeply. "So we won't be able to track him through the League even if he was the one who robbed us."

"What makes you think we were robbed?" Arthur asks. "I know it's a mess in the study, and the... Captain _was_ ransacking it, but I didn't see him actually take anything."

"Maybe he did it whilst you were knocked out." Alasdair gestures towards the bruise purpling Arthur's left temple. "Or it could have been the Frog. He's been lurking around here tonight, too." In answer to the question that Arthur's furrowed brow and parted lips suggest he's about to ask, Alasdair says, "I did have him locked up downstairs, but you know what he's like. He's probably escaped by now. Either way, we're fucked."

"How so?" Arthur asks.

"Grandfather's secret compartment's been cleared out."

Arthur's face drains of blood, and he starts trying to scramble unsteadily to his feet. Alasdair holds him still with a firm hand against his shoulder. "Don't bother," he says. "Dylan and I have got everything in hand. We're going to set the study to rights as best we can, and, fingers crossed, Grandfather won't even think to check if anything's missing for the time being."

"And then?"

"And then, first thing tomorrow morning, we'll go and pay Dylan's horrible boyfriend a visit," Alasdair says. "We're going to need some help tracking down the Frog and this Alfred bloke, and you know as well as I do that he's the best in the business, unfortunately."


	4. Chapter 4

The delightful ridiculousness of his situation – _"Halt, evil doer,"_ indeed! – keeps Francis diverted for much too long, and by the time he finally wrestles his laughter under control, they've left the bright lights of the Kirkland estate far behind.

He mentally berates himself for his deplorable lack of discipline, takes a deep, calming breath, and then gets down to the serious business of effecting his escape.

He twists his body to one side and then the other, kicks out his feet, batters his closed fists against the superhero's back and drums his knees against his chest, over and over again until he's winded, soaked through with sweat, and every muscle in his body is strained and aching from it.

The superhero remains completely impassive, the arm he has hooked around Francis' thighs as unyielding as a steel bar.

Clearly, Francis has no chance of overpowering him physically. He will have to bide his time, recover his strength, and keep a careful eye on his surroundings.

Though the latter is near impossible in his current position, he finds that if he cranes his neck back in perfect time with the jolting bounce of the superhero's step, he can manage to catch a fleeting glimpse of the landscape every few of metres or so.

There's little to see and even less light to see it by, but Francis is able to piece together some scant details from the shadows: the long, roughhewn lines of dry stone walls; the twisted silhouette of a stunted tree; the organic bulk of a herd of cattle huddled close in the middle distance.

The stunted tree again.

And again.

Francis sighs. "Are you lost?" he asks.

"No!" The superhero sounds affronted. "Of course not!"

His stride becomes longer, more determined, as though intent on demonstrating that he does indeed have a destination in mind and is in a great hurry to get there. They soon pass the distinctive little tree for a fourth time, regardless. As Francis has no interest in viewing it for a fifth – which he's now certain is inevitable – he relaxes in for the ride and waits.

His patience is very quickly rewarded by the superhero's steps gradually slowing to a halt only a few minutes later. He heaves out a heavy sigh of his own and admits: "Maybe I have gotten a _little_ turned around."

"I know the area very well," Francis says. "If you put me down, then—"

"No chance! You'll just run away!"

"Look, you're obviously much stronger than me, and I suspect you're faster, too. Likely, I wouldn't get far. In any case" – Francis wriggles his toes to draw the superhero's attention downwards – "my footwear is hardly conducive for cross-country running."

There follows a brief moment of silence wherein Francis imagines the superhero is contemplating his shoes and evaluating their suitability for navigating the rugged terrain.

Francis is sure they'll pass muster. They're light and thin-soled, scarcely thicker than socks: designed for quiet movement and agility rather than trekking. The far sturdier boots he'd planned on making his getaway in had been stashed along with the rest of his civilian clothes in a bag hidden just outside the Kirkland estate, one which the superhero had thoughtlessly failed to scoop up along with Francis himself when he'd snatched him off his feet practically alongside it.

"I'll put you down," the superhero says, somewhat dubiously, "but I'm going to keep hold of you the entire time, okay?"

"Okay," Francis agrees, in as meek and submissive a tone as he can stomach.

To his own ears, he still sounds more surly than compliant, but the superhero must be satisfied as he abruptly and unceremoniously drops Francis to the ground. Before Francis' vision has even stopped spinning from the sudden rush of blood to his head, the superhero grabs hold of his wrist.

Francis flexes the muscles in his arm experimentally, testing the superhero's grip, but it remains as sturdy as the Kirklands' grade A shackles, and would doubtless prove just as difficult to wriggle out of. It appears that he's still trapped and his only option is to play along, at least for the time being.

To that end, he scans the horizon until he spots an inky black, angular smudge that suggests a familiar landmark: the tip of the steeple that graces the church in Sutton, the village closest to the Kirkland estate.

"There," he says, pointing towards it. "Civilisation's that way, just over the crest of that hi—"

The superhero hoists Francis up and slings him over his shoulder again, crushing the air from his lungs so thoroughly that he can't catch enough breath for the gasp of surprise that is his instinctive reaction, never mind finishing his last word.

The superhero sets off walking with renewed purpose.

Francis hangs his head down, resigned, and endures.  
-

* * *

-  
As they come into sight of Sutton, the superhero stops once more, this time with a muttered imprecation.

"What's wrong now?" Francis asks.

"Nothing," the superhero is quick to assure him, but after only a short, immobile pause he admits, "My clothes, my wallet… I stuffed them all in some bathroom closet when I changed into my costume, but I forgot to go back and grab them before I left the Kirklands' house."

Francis tuts. "You should never store such things inside enemy territory. Far too dangerous. Surely the League taught you that?"

The superhero's shoulders slump, his arms tense: it's barely a reaction, but it speaks volumes to Francis. "You're not with the league, are you?" he asks.

"I am!" The superhero's shoulders slump a little further. "Well, my application was accepted, but my registration hasn't quite finished going through yet. I've heard all these rumours about the Kirklands, though: how people have disappeared from their house, and that they own dangerous books" – Francis pricks up his ears, but that seems to be all the superhero has to say on the subject for now – "and practice dark magic, but the League's just ignoring them. I thought maybe I could find out if any of it was true, even if they won't."

"By breaking in while the entire family and half of the Guild is in attendance? A bold move, if a trifle foolhardy. And did you discover what you were looking for?"

Perhaps the two books that had been missing from grand-père Kirkland's secret drawer? If so, then France's capture hadn't been the misfortune he'd been thinking it was, but instead a wonderfully serendipitous stroke of good luck.

Unfortunately, Francis feels the superhero shake his head. "One of them caught me in the act, and I just…" The superhero hesitates. He sounds embarrassed. "I just ran away."

"Until you happened to run into me," Francis concludes. "Presuming I wasn't one of your intended targets, of course."

"I don't even know who you are," the superhero says. "I just saw a guy dressed in a grey catsuit, sneaking out over a wall, and guessed you were probably up to no good. I might not have my card right now, but I _am_ a hero, and it's my job to stop evil-doers."

"Even if they're stealing from supervillains?" Francis says wonderingly. "I have to admire to your work ethic, though I doubt the League will. You won't be able to turn me over to them, you know, not without getting yourself into a great deal of trouble for unsanctioned heroism. What, then, do you intend to do with me?"

The superhero has no reply to that, which does not surprise Francis, as he appears to possess a lot more courage than good sense, and forward planning is clearly not his forte.

"I suggest that you let me go, I'll go my way and you go yours, and we'll say no more about it."

"But you're a _villain_ ," the superhero protests, his chest expanding with righteous indignation at the thought.

"Technically, I'm just a simple thief," Francis says. "Like you, I'm unlicensed. If you were to, say, hand me over to the authorities, and the Guild happened to find out that I'd been caught stealing from George Kirkland – which they inevitably would – then their reprisals would be severe indeed."

 _And you wouldn't want that on your conscience, would you?_ Francis doesn't say, but he can tell the superhero heard the implication of it all the same. His faltering breath and slackening grip around Francis' middle makes that very clear.

"Why were you stealing from him?" the superhero asks.

"I'm no friend of that family," Francis says, "and I, too, have heard unpleasant rumours them. I was searching for evidence tonight myself. If they are harbouring any dark secrets, I fully intend to bring them to light." He lets his voice drop low and wheedling. "You could say that we're on the same side."

The superhero snorts humourlessly. "No, I couldn't," he says, but lowers Francis to the ground again, nonetheless. "But maybe… Maybe we're not on completely different ones?"

He sounds hopeful, begging for reassurance, which Francis is able to offer him with the sort of true sincerity he would never usually be able to employ when dealing with superheroes. "I'd like to think so," he says.

Although it looks as though it pains him to do so, the superhero sends Francis on his way with a dismissive flap of his hand. Francis gratefully turns on his heel to comply, but only manages to get a couple of steps away before the superhero calls out to him.

"Hey, I don't suppose you know how to hotwire a car, do you?" he asks sheepishly. "I just realised I left my car keys back at the mansion along with everything else."

It's on the tip of Francis' tongue to boast that he was practically still in nappies when he learnt to do so, but a sudden thought strikes that makes him reconsider his answer.

For years, he's struggled without success to culture a reliable source within the League, and though this superhero might be unlicensed, he's still heard enough about the Kirklands to know about the books, of all things. He may be useful.

"Unfortunately, not." Francis shakes his head with mock chagrin. "I'm an art thief by trade and that is not a skill I'm adept at. I do, however, have a car, and am more than happy to give you a lift in return for your kindness in freeing me."  
-

* * *

-  
The superhero laughs when he sees Francis' car parked in a quiet, seldom-used lane behind the church, which offends Francis deeply enough that he briefly considers rescinding his offer, no matter its potential worth.

"What's so funny?" he asks tightly.

"I wasn't expecting _that_ ," the superhero says, gesturing emphatically towards the car. "I thought art thieves drove Lamborghinis or Porsches not _Renault Clios_."

"In my profession," Francis says, "it pays to be inconspicuous. Besides," he adds, feeling defensive, "I have many other cars that I use when I'm not working."

He gets into the car, ushering the superhero to take the passenger seat, and then waits until he's buckled his seatbelt before saying, in a feigned hesitant tone calculated to imply that the idea has just occurred to him, "I think you and I might be able to help one another."

The superhero's eyes narrow suspiciously. "How?" he asks.

"If we work together, we're probably better situated than anyone else to expose the Kirklands, seeing as though we can work outside the rules of both the Guild _and_ the League." Francis plasters on a smile, as broad and guileless as he is capable of. "I have a… bolthole only a few minutes away. I'll take you there, rather than—"

The superhero lunges for the handle beside him and seems surprised when the car door swings open without resistance.

Francis rolls his eyes. "If I'd wanted to kidnap you, I would never have attempted it while you were awake. As you've ably demonstrated, you can easily overpower me." He pats one of the pouches on his utility belt. "I would have stuck a dart in your neck, and you wouldn't have been any the wiser about my intentions until you regained consciousness. Look, I just want to show you the evidence I've already collected and compare notes. You'll be free to leave whenever you like."

The superhero stares out into the night through the open door for a long moment, but ultimately slams it closed and settles back in his seat.

"I'm certain you've made the right choice, _mon ami_ ," Francis says, his smile shrinking down and becoming more genuine in the process. "And I'm very grateful for the trust you've already shown me, but I must ask you for just a little bit more."

He reaches back and fishes around in the footwell behind his seat until he finds the scarf he'd discarded there before setting out on tonight's mission.

The superhero's brow furrows when Francis hands it to him. "What's this for?" he asks.

"While I have no doubts that we'll make staunch allies in time, we're not quite there yet," Francis says. "You're still a hero, and I can't risk you knowing the route to my safe house. You'll have to wear a blindfold, I'm afraid."


	5. Chapter 5

With the aid of a few spells and a spot of the more mundane sort of magic Alasdair can work with a screwdriver and a pair of needle-nose pliers, he and Dylan manage to restore Grandfather's study to its usual state of anal-retentive orderliness, and Dylan begins to think he might actually be able to get some sleep tonight instead of fretting himself into a bout of nervous insomnia.

He isn't given the chance to properly bask in that warm, contented feeling, however, because as soon as Alasdair's packed away his tools, he says, "Wart and I were discussing what our next move should be, and we reckon you should go and pay Lovino a visit tomorrow; see if you can persuade him to help us track down the Frog."

Dylan's stomach gurgles unhappily, and his heart resumes its energetic tango in his chest. "Wh— What?" he stammers out. "Why me?"

"Because you…" Alasdair blushes, and stares very hard at the lid of his toolbox. "You're… You and he are, you know…."

He finally gives up on words, presses his hands together, palm to palm and fingers laced, and gives Dylan a meaningful look.

"Oh." Blood rushes to Dylan's face, too. "Right. _That_."

He wishes he'd never mentioned to Alasdair what had happened between Lovino and him the night of Grandfather's birthday party three weeks ago. Alasdair hadn't appreciated being told, and Dylan had been in such high spirits, so transported with the unexpected joy of the moment, that he'd inadvertently given his brother the impression that it was a far more significant occurrence than it was in reality.

By the time he'd realised his error, Alasdair had run away with the idea – rapidly, and in completely the wrong direction – concocted an imagined relationship for them, whole cloth, and Lovino had become Dylan's 'horrible boyfriend' thenceforth, a sobriquet which has since been taken up by Arthur and Michael too, though, thankfully, has yet to spread any farther. Both Grandfather and Lovino would doubtless both be furious if they heard it, if for wholly different reasons.

Still, it's all gone on for so long that it's well past the point where Dylan could have graciously corrected his Alasdair and had a good laugh about the misunderstanding, and by this point, it will just seem as though he was trying to hoodwink his brothers with a deliberate lie of omission. He's decided that the only way to put an end to the entire, ridiculous farce and still retain some small shred of dignity would be for him to have an equally fictitious breakup with Lovino that he could sadly confess to.

It's just a matter of picking the perfect moment, and they have proven very thin on the ground. Slightly intoxicated – and thoroughly ill-advised – revelations of casual intimacy aside, he and Alasdair don't ever talk about their personal lives unprompted, and the opportunity to introduce Lovino into the conversation organically just hasn't arisen before now.

And it still won't do him any good, because, pretend romance or no, he's the only one of the three of them who could realistically approach Lovino, anyway.

As their grandfathers are close friends, Alasdair and Lovino have known each other since they were babies and detested each other almost as long due to some unforgivable transgression that had occurred when they were toddlers and neither has any clear memory of. And Arthur, who otherwise takes perverse pleasure in holding – or, at least, professing to hold – the opposite opinion to Alasdair on all matters he considers important, had grown up following his lead in this, if little else.

So it had fallen to Dylan to entertain Lovino throughout the many family functions and Guild parties the Vargases had attended over the decades, during which time his childhood admiration of the older boy – their three year age gap had made him seem incredibly worldly and wise in their youth – had developed into a long-standing crush once adolescent hormones kicked in. Lovino had, to Dylan's mind, remained wilfully ignorant of the crush until very recently, but always did seem to hold him in a little less contempt than the rest of his family before then, regardless.

Arthur and Alasdair would get the door slammed in their face for their troubles if they went begging for help, but Dylan might just be allowed to get his foot over the threshold, if he's lucky.

"Fine," he says grudgingly, because he doesn't really see that he has much choice in the matter, "I'll do it."

"Great! Thanks, Dyl," Alasdair says, beaming. "Wart and I'll cover for you with Grandfather, and you go…" He swallows hard, and, judging by his subsequent grimace, he's choking back bile. "Go and… flutter your eyelashes at Lovino or whatever else it is you need to do."  
-

* * *

-  
Dylan's night is just as restless as he feared it would be, and his reluctant check in his bathroom mirror come morning exposes a disheartening sight. His skin is ashen, his eyes bleary and bagged, and his hair has matted itself into an impenetrable thicket of intertwined curls.

His lengthy, scouring hot shower helps to return some colour to his cheeks, and the judicious application of conditioner and a good half hour of patient unpicking serves to untangle his hair, though it does frizz up to enormous proportions afterwards, floating around his head in a vast, staticky cloud.

He scrapes it back into a stubby ponytail, splashes on some of his most expensive cologne, and dresses in his most flattering shirt and trousers, which cling to less of his unsightly bulges than the rest of his wardrobe.

A second inspection of his reflection confirms that, whilst his resemblance to a newly-risen zombie may be less striking than before, he's hardly transformed into an irresistible sexual animal able to charm Lovino with a single glance. He just looks like a very tired, very plain man who's made the best of what little he has, which, frankly, is as good as he's likely to get and there's no point in belabouring things further.

He takes the longest, most circuitous route possible to Chester, and drags his feet once he gets there, but, despite his efforts, he winds up at his destination in the end, if an hour later than he'd originally planned.

It purports to be an antique shop, but Dylan doubts that anything has ever been sold there. Everything about it seems to be designed to discourage customers: it's so far off the beaten track as to be virtually in Knutsford; the small, mullioned windows are covered in such a thick accretion of ancient grime that they're almost opaque; and the sign above the door is so battered and weather-worn that the only legible letter that remains is a cryptic and unhelpful Q.

Inside is no better, the air stuffy and redolent of mildew, and the merchandise is dotted around the floor in haphazard piles: two chairs and jade vase sitting atop a small mahogany table in one corner, an ornately carved chest of drawers covered in porcelain figurines of children and silver snuff boxes in the next, and every bit of it covered in dust.

Normally, either Lovino or his brother, Feliciano, would be stationed at the counter just in case a curious passer-by failed to be put off by the shop's unprepossessing exterior, but today it stands empty.

Dylan takes a deep breath, and once he's stopped coughing, calls out, "Hello?"

For a short while, his only answer is a silence broken only by the quiet pitter-pat of what he assumes to be mouse feet, but Lovino does eventually call back, "I'm in my workshop. Come on through."

As directed, Dylan picks his way around the perilously stacked mounds of antiques to the back of the shop, and from there through the door behind the counter to a short corridor cluttered with empty packing crates which appears to terminate in a dead end. A quick twist of the light fitting and press of an exposed brick, and the wall swings back to reveal a brightly lit room, its floor to ceiling white tiling dazzling compared to the cobwebbed gloom outside.

The greater part of it is taken up by Lovino's chrome-topped workbench, which is pristine in comparison to everything else in the shop and has only the tools he needs for his current job laid out upon it: a pot of ink, an old ledger opened to a page covered in cramped writing, and a piece of yellowed parchment which he doesn't look up from until Dylan is practically breathing down his neck.

Even then, he only spares him the most cursory of glances before hunkering back down with his quill again. "Our latest client's started to get cold feet about buying one of Feli's _masterpieces_ ," he says. "He wants it authenticating. I'm just working on some provenance for him."

By which Dylan takes him to mean that it's important, delicate work that he shouldn't really be interrupting, so he sits in the chair at the opposite end of the workbench with the intention of waiting as patiently and unobtrusively as possible, but soon finds himself mesmerised by Lovino's hands despite himself.

He has long thought them beautiful, with their long artist's fingers that always – or nearly always – seem to be imbued with such deft self-assurance. They hint at great talent, an impression Dylan had thought borne out by the few of his paintings he'd managed to catch a glimpse of over the years, though Lovino had been quick to disabuse him of that notion. They were amateurish, he'd told him, which is why Feliciano was the one who forged artwork, and he, only the documentation for it.

Nonetheless, they still appear to move so effortlessly to Dylan: gliding across the parchment, swooping to dip his quill, gliding again. Slowing. Stopping.

Lovino clears his throat roughly, and then growls out, "What do you want?"

Dylan cringes. Clearly, his staring had been obtrusive despite his good intentions. A distraction, and an unwelcome one at that, considering the angry red flush pooling in Lovino's cheeks and at the base of his throat.

"Sorry," Dylan says. "I just wanted to ask you…" The words are difficult to force out in the face of Lovino's scowl, but his annoyance pales into insignificance when compared to the possibility of Grandfather's future ire, so Dylan eventually finds the courage to continue. "To ask you a favour."

Lovino's scowl deepens. "What sort of favour?"

"I was wondering if you could help us… me find the Frog."

"Has he broken into your grandfather's place again?" Lovino asks.

Dylan nods, and, for a moment, considers telling Lovino about the theft, but ultimately decides it's best that that knowledge stays solely within the family. Lovino is very close to his own grandfather, and Dylan can't trust that he won't let the information slip if he thinks it might be of some use to him. "And we're sick of it. We just want to scare him a little, get him to back off for once and for all."

To Dylan's surprise, Lovino doesn't hesitate before saying, "Okay, I'll have some of my people look into it. We already know he has a safe house nearby, it shouldn't take too long to track him down."

It's even more embarrassing than the initial question had been, but Grandfather keeps such a tight rein on all of his grandsons, including their finances, that Dylan has to admit that: "You know I can't pay you much, but—"

"I don't need your money," Lovino says, waving the suggestion away. "I'd like to ask you for a favour in return."

Dylan is so relieved that he replies without thinking: "Whatever you want."

"I need _your_ help finding my grandfather."

"Oh." Dylan blinks at him, puzzled. "I wasn't aware he was missing."

"I'm not sure that he is," Lovino says. "But he didn't make it home from your grandfather's party, we haven't heard a word from him or his driver since then, and their mobiles just go straight through to voicemail."

The Shrike had seemed in perfectly good health last night to Dylan, if a little green around the gills. "He did look like he'd been going a bit heavy on the brandy. Grandfather probably just gave them both beds for the night to sleep it off."

"You didn't see him this morning?"

Dylan didn't see anything at the manor besides the inside of his bathroom this morning. He shakes his head. "I'm sure he's fine, but I'll take a look, ask around, and let you know what I find out, okay?"

"Thanks," Lovino says, bestowing one of his rare smiles on Dylan before returning his attention to his parchment once more.

It's a conclusion to their business and a dismissal both, Dylan thinks, so he gets to his feet and starts to walk away, but the sound of Lovino's voice stops him before he reaches the door.

"What time is your grandfather expecting you back?" he asks.

"Around lunchtime," Dylan says. That's a bit of a stretch, but the optician's appointment Alasdair had invented to explain his absence could plausibly be eked out that long; he's always very indecisive when it comes to picking out frames. He'd planned on using this stolen time to have a cup of tea and a slice of cake in a café, something he very seldom gets to do unaccompanied.

"Feliciano's in his studio," Lovino says.

"Okay?" Dylan says, unsure as to why Lovino's seen fit to inform him of that fact, which is nearly always true in any case. Except, perhaps, to subtly reproach him for attempting to leave without popping in to say hello to him, too. "I should go and—"

"He'll be up there for hours," Lovino continues. "He gets very focused when he's working."

Or perhaps not. Completely at a loss now to explain Lovino's motivations, Dylan can only assay another, "Okay?" and hope that further clarification is forthcoming.

Lovino, however, simply stares at him. And stares, more and more of his face growing crimson until he finally snaps, "For fuck's sake," and launches himself up from his chair.

He covers the distance between them in two long strides, encircles Dylan with his arms, and kisses him. Hard. Their noses mash together, their teeth clash, and Dylan just stands there and does nothing, incapable of reciprocation because he'd never dared to even think something like this might happen.

They'd both been wasted the night of Grandfather's party: Dylan drunk enough to try punching far above his weight, and Lovino drunk enough, Dylan had assumed, to be desperate. Their encounter had been, from what he can remember, brief and awkward, but he'd been delighted by it all the same as it was more than he'd ever expected. Lovino, he was certain, wouldn't be beating down his door for a repeat performance.

He certainly seems eager enough now, at least for a little while, but when Dylan's stunned immobility doesn't abate, he steps back, his arms dropping down to rest at his sides. He's scowling again, but there's something that looks a little like hurt in his eyes, and Dylan reaches out for him on reflex, wanting to grab hold of him before he retreats entirely.

Lovino bats his hands aside. "Not in my fucking workshop," he says chidingly, as though it had been _Dylan's_ idea to start things here, not his. "It's supposed to be sterile. Come on" – he takes hold of Dylan's hand – "there's an empty storeroom out back."

Not the most romantic of locations, but, Dylan supposes, likely to be slightly more comfortable than Grandfather's downstairs cloakroom and a coat hook digging into the back of his neck for the duration. When Lovino tugs him forward, he complies with alacrity.  
-

* * *

-  
 **Note:** _When I was first planning this fic, I had no intention of including Wales/Romano, despite it being one of my favourite (crack) ships and both characters being present. I was determined I wouldn't, in fact._

 _That didn't last long. Updated the summary as a consequence._


	6. Chapter 6

The blindfold the superhero had so compliantly worn seemed to have had a soporific effect on him, because he'd nodded off the instant after Francis finished tying it around his head, and remained asleep for the duration of their short drive.

Once they arrive at Francis' safe house, he rouses slowly, and stumbles down the many stairs to the living quarters in a dazed stupor, swaying so alarmingly on his feet that Francis has to keep a tight hold on his elbow throughout for fear that he might otherwise pitch over headfirst and break his neck.

Francis steers him towards the couch, which he slumps down onto heavily, his head drooping down until his chin hits his chest.

" _Mon ami_?" Francis ventures experimentally.

The superhero's lax lips part, but the only sound that issues from them is a whistling groan that sounds somewhat like a snore.

Concluding that he isn't likely to be fit for any further conversation tonight, Francis instead bustles off to fetch him a blanket. By the time he returns, the superhero has passed out, his body twisted in a position that makes Francis' spine ache in sympathy just to look at him: his upper half prostrate against the couch cushions, his feet still flat against the floor.

Francis lifts his legs up onto the couch, removes both his boots and his glasses, drapes the blanket over him, and then retires to his own bed. For the first time in years, sleep comes quickly for him too, and, untroubled by his usual nightmares, he wakes feeling refreshed at a little after ten.

Coffee is normally a necessity rather than an indulgence, but today he intends to savour it: brew one of his more exclusive blends, and drink it at his leisure whilst he dines on something more palatable than the cereal bar which is his most frequent breakfast choice of late, though one of expedience rather than preference.

Mindful of his guest, he roots out his one pair of pyjamas, and dons them and a dressing gown before meandering out into the living room. The superhero is still comatose, now spread-eagled on his back, the blanket laying discarded in a crumpled heap upon the floor.

He doesn't stir as Francis passes by, nor when he starts clattering about in the kitchenette as he prepares coffee. Francis pours two cups, and sets one on the low table beside the couch. The piquant steam rising from it drifts towards the superhero, his nostrils flare, and he sits bolt upright, grabbing the cup without opening his eyes.

Francis watches him gulp down half of it before observing, "I could have poisoned that, you know."

The superhero's eyes fly open, and he gags exaggeratedly. "What the—"

"I haven't," Francis says, "but you should be more cautious. Not everyone is as tolerant of superheroes as I am."

"Thanks for the advice, I guess," the superhero says, and though he doesn't look particularly reassured, he is willing enough to take Francis at his word that he quickly guzzles the remainder of his coffee. That, or he just really needs the caffeine.

"Would you care for some breakfast?" Francis asks. "I have croissants. They're only store-bought, I'm afraid, but I don't have any of the right ingredients in stock to make my own. It's been a long time since I last had the opportunity to bake."

"They're not poisoned, are they?" the superhero asks, his mouth curving into a small, crooked smile.

"Not unless Waitrose has resorted to some very nefarious business practices."

"Then I'll take as many as you can spare, thanks," the superhero says. "I'm starving."

Whilst Francis heats the croissants, the superhero gets up from the couch, stretches, and then looks around himself with an obvious interest that the small space doesn't really deserve, given there's very little to see. Beyond the couch, table, bookshelf, and TV in the living area, there is only the kitchenette and two doors leading to Francis' bedroom and the bathroom respectively. The only decoration and sole item of note is a painting – the most treasured of Francis' many acquisitions, and one he couldn't bear to leave behind in Paris when he relocated his base of operations here – but the superhero's gaze simply skims over it.

"Are we underground?" the superhero asks, obviously having noted the lack of windows.

"We are, but that's as much as I'm willing to say on the matter, so please don't ask," Francis says.

Despite this warning, the superhero's mouth opens on what is clearly going to be a question, judging by the curious glint in his eyes, so Francis quickly grabs the croissants from the oven, and offers them up to him as a distraction.

The superhero tears into them as ferociously as if he hasn't eaten for a week, barely even taking the time to chew each bite before swallowing it. Francis watches him in horrified fascination as he nibbles on his own croissant, something the superhero remains oblivious to until he has to take a break from gorging himself to suck in some air instead of his pastry.

His cheeks pink. "I always get really hungry after I've used my powers," he says by way of an explanation for his behaviour.

Interesting, and potentially valuable information. Francis had assumed that his parahuman strength was an intrinsic part of him. "So I see," he says. "And you get very tired, too?"

"Exhausted," the superhero confirms. "I don't remember anything from last night after you put that blindfold on me. Thanks for making sure I didn't crash out in a field or something."

"Not a problem," Francis says. "I hope you understand by now that I don't mean you any harm. You are, after all, more useful to me alive than dead." Which reminds him: "Will anyone miss you if you don't go home today?"

"Man, you're not really helping your case when you say things like that. You sound like a serial killer." The superhero laughs. "But, no, no-one will. I live with my mom and my brother, but I told them I was going out clubbing with some friends in Chester last night, and they'll just think I decided to stay overnight with one of them. My mom might start to worry if I don't call her at some point, but it's not like she's going to be sending out a search party before then."

"So you live locally, then?" Francis asks, not really expecting an answer, but the superhero is apparently guileless enough to not realise how dangerous such information could be in the wrong hands.

"Near enough," he answers readily. "We're in Warrington. My mom's English, and she wanted to move closer to her family after her and my dad got divorced. We've been there about ten years now."

Francis suspects that the superhero would spill his entire life story given the slightest encouragement, but whilst that might be beneficial in the future, for now they have more pressing matters to attend to. To that end he says: "Come with me. Now that you've refuelled, there are some things I need to show you."  
-

* * *

-  
Francis takes the superhero, or Alfred Jones as he belatedly introduces himself – his real name, no less, because he doesn't seem to possess even the most basic self-preservation instincts – to the cramped study that leads off his bedroom, and talks him through a small part of the evidence of George Kirkland's activities he has amassed.

The testimonials from his fellow practitioners of magic that he takes more than an academic interest in the darkest of dark arts; the invoices from black marketeers that show he has slowly been amassing a collection of extremely powerful artefacts; the list of disappearances and deaths that he has been able to link to the Kirkland patriarch or his estate, dating back over twenty years.

"Most of them were low-level Guild members, small fry, but there are a few that stand out. The Nightmare King, for example," Francis says, pointing to the relevant entry on the printout, "was a member of the Council of 13. His body was found only ten miles from the Kirklands' holiday home in Scotland.

"Elizabeth and David Kirkland: George's own daughter and son-in-law. Six months after their youngest son was born, they were sent to Germany, ostensibly on a business trip. They never returned. They haven't been seen for fifteen years now, and are presumed dead.

"Marianne Bonnefoy" – Francis brushes the pad of his thumb against the name – "my mother. Last seen at the Kirkland estate five years ago. I presume she's dead, even if no-one else does."

One of Alfred's hands lands softly on his shoulder, and he gives it a gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry," he says.

Francis expects to see some hint of mockery in his expression that would make a lie of the sentiment, but Alfred looks nothing but sincere. Superhero's really are very confounding creatures. "She was a thief like me," he says, wanting to test that sincerity, "and a member of the Guild."

"But she was your mom, too," Alfred says, "and I'm really sorry that she's gone."

No-one has offered Francis any sympathy for his mother before, and he isn't sure what to do with it now, so he just brushes it off along with Alfred's hand and gets back to business. "I took my concerns to the Guild, but they wouldn't listen. They insisted that she'd simply taken off of her own accord, started a new life somewhere else."

Which she wouldn't have, not without telling Francis of her plans first, and she definitely would never have left him wondering.

For most of Francis' life, they had only had each other. His father was a rich playboy; the perfect match for an international art thief, but a poor candidate for the more prosaic role of husband and father. He left Francis' mother when Francis was three, and Francis hasn't seen or heard from him since beyond the annual birthday card he sends – that always arrives between one and three weeks late – and the sporadic gifts of guilt money which appear in his bank account every few months or so.

Even in the direst of straits, she would have found some way to contact him over the past five years.

"I've never had any physical proof of anything I could take to them, only hearsay and conjecture. Until last night." He retrieves the book from his utility belt, and hands it to Alfred. "I finally managed to steal _this_ from grand-père Kirkland's study."

Alfred leafs through the dog-eared pages and though Francis watches him carefully, his face remains completely blank. "I guess this is one of those dangerous books the League was worried he owned," he says when he reaches the end.

"You don't recognise it, then?" Francis asks.

"Like I said, I'm technically not even a member of the League, and they haven't let me read any of their supervillain dossiers or anything yet." Alfred shrugs. "I've just heard a bit of the gossip that's going around League headquarters. Sorry, I can't help you."

Francis is disappointed, but not particularly surprised. He expected had as much, though he had held out some small hope for more. "Not with this, perhaps, but I could always use some muscle." He has never needed any before, but Francis finds himself unwilling to part company with Alfred quite yet. He hasn't had any sort of ally in years. "If you're still interested in working together, of course."

"I am." Alfred nods decisively, and holds his out his hand for Francis to shake. Francis clasps it, but only briefly, because Alfred's grip is bruising now that he's fed and rested and has recovered his strength. "So, what's our next move?"

"I can't make any sense of the book either, so I need to find out if it can be translated," Francis says. "I know someone who may be able to do so. His name is Lovino Vargas; a forger and expert in old documents. He's Guild, but we were good friends once, so I'm hoping he might willing to help me."

"Okay." Alfred nods again. "After that, do you think we could go back to the Kirklands' and get my stuff. I really don't like the idea of them finding it. My driver's license is in my wallet, so they could find out my address." He pales rapidly. "And, shit, my house keys are there, too…"

"Don't worry." Francis pats his spandex-clad knee comfortingly. "I've broken into the estate so many times, I'm a dab hand at it by now. It won't be any trouble at all."


	7. Chapter 7

Arthur wakes at seven, showers, shaves and brushes his teeth, then spends a good ten minutes and the best part of a tin of pomade persuading his hair to lie sleek and orderly against his skull. It will have sprung back into its usual state of spiky disarray within the hour, but by then it won't matter anymore.

He buffs his shoes, dresses in a freshly-pressed suit, shirt and tie, and hurries downstairs, reaching the formal dining room at 7:58 precisely. Alasdair is already seated at the long table there, looking like an overstuffed sausage in his own suit as he always does, no matter how much Grandfather spends on them or how well-tailored they are.

He nods a 'good morning' to Arthur, but then disregards him in favour of the fork set out by his plate, pushing on the tips of the tines until they touch the table top – tick – and then letting go so that the handle slams down – tock. Over and over and over again. The sound grates on Arthur's nerves within seconds, but he grits his teeth and says nothing. Grandfather will not stand for raised voices in the morning.

Michael rushes into the dining room at 8:04: pallid, sweating, and still in the process of fastening his tie.

"You're okay, Mikey," Alasdair tells him. "Grandfather hasn't come down yet."

"Thank fuck," Michael says, slumping down onto the chair next to Alasdair's. His head hits the top of the backrest with a solid thunk, and he stares up at the ceiling whilst he fights to bring his ragged breathing back under control.

At 8:08, Alasdair undoes the top button of his shirt and leans back in his chair to the accompaniment of a deep sigh.

At ten past, Michael takes a book out of his jacket pocket, which he lays open on his lap and begins to read.

Arthur stares straight ahead, unmoving, and at 8:16, the sound of Grandfather's stertorous breathing enters the dining room, closely followed by the man himself.

His heavy gaze immediately sweeps the table. "Alasdair," he snaps, "sit up straight. I know you've got a spine, I suggest you learn how to use it.

"Michael, put that thing away. No books at the table.

"And Arthur…" Grandfather's eyes narrow down to thin slits, almost swallowed up by the fleshy folds of his face. Arthur faces this close examination with complete serenity, knowing that, this time, he doesn't have so much as a hair out of place. Nevertheless, Grandfather still concludes that: "Your tie's crooked. Sort it out. Clothes make the man, my boy."

The morning inspection concluded to his satisfaction, if no-one else's, Grandfather lumbers to his seat at the head of the table and wedges himself into it. He commands one of his attending retinue of henchmen – Number Twelve – to fetch breakfast, and the man complies with a bafflingly wide smile, as though being tasked to play servant represents the very pinnacle of his henching career to date.

He dismisses the rest of his minions, and then, in an off-hand tone belied by the stiff, angry set of his shoulders and florid cheeks, observes, "No Dylan today?"

"He had to go to an emergency optician's appointment," Alasdair says, the words stiff and mechanical-sounding. "He sat on his reading glasses and broke them."

It's a weak excuse, but the best they'd been able to extemporise on short notice. The list of places they're allowed to visit alone is vanishingly small.

Arthur holds his breath until his chest aches, certain that Grandfather will see straight through their attempted deception, especially given Alasdair's poor performance of it. He's always been an appalling liar.

But Grandfather's mind must, thankfully, be on other things, because he simply shakes his head and says, "Bloody typical."

He says no more on the matter or any other – conversation is as discouraged at the table as books are – and their breakfast is conducted in its usual silence.

After the dishes have been tidied away, Grandfather informs them that: "I'll be leaving for a meeting in London at eleven, and won't be back until Sunday. Most of the henchmen will be accompanying me, but Ten and Fourteen will remain here with you. I expect hourly reports from both them and you, and I expect them to match."

Ten henched for their _great-grandfather_ and should have been put out to pasture long ago, and Fourteen is still laid up in bed, both of his legs in plaster, after being thrown into a wall during Grandfather's last showdown with Power-Man. It's almost as good as being left on their own, and, on any other day, Arthur would have been proud to be accorded this show of trust, but now he's just relieved. Retrieving Grandfather's stolen property will be a hell of a lot easier if they don't have to do it behind his back.

Arthur choruses, "Yes, Grandfather," along with his brothers, and then Grandfather dismisses them, too. They quickly scatter to take up their usual weekday pursuits: Alasdair to his patrol of the grounds, Michael to his tutor, and Arthur, his research.  
-

* * *

-  
Magic has coursed through the veins of the Kirklands for generations, dating back, or so Grandfather tells it, to a medieval witch so powerful that she needed to be burnt at the stake three times before it finally stuck.

Grandfather has little intrinsic talent for it, and struggles to perform even the most rudimentary spells that his daughter and grandchildren all mastered before they hit double digits, but he has always been fascinated by the study of the art, all the same.

He buys every spellbook and grimoire he can lay his hands on, and likes to boast that he has amassed the largest collection of magical literature in Europe, if not the world. No-one will ever be able to verify that claim, however, as he keeps the library secured behind multiple locks so complex that they would even stymie the Frog, and, until two years ago, he had never let a living soul set so much as a toe inside it.

After completing the Masters in Library Studies Grandfather insisted he take, it had become Arthur's job to sort and catalogue the books, which had hitherto been shoved higgledy-piggledy onto any old flat surface that had room for them, with no thought or care given for their organisation or even preservation.

Some of them were so old and desiccated that they dissolved into dust and scraps of leather when Arthur picked them up, others – especially those stacked on the windowsills – had soaked through from the damp that permeates the entire manor during the winter months, and their bindings were mottled with mould.

Arthur quietly bins the volumes that are beyond saving, restores the rest as best he can, and reads through whatever pages remain legible, taking careful note of any spells they contain.

It's slow, laborious, and strangely boring work, given the subject matter. Most of the spells have long outlived their usefulness to _anyone_ , never mind Grandfather. He doesn't talk much about his work, but Arthur still doubts that he'd have much call for incantations that purport to cure the grippe or replicate bushels of wheat.

Every now and again, though, Arthur happens to stumble across something of interest. Last month, it had been a rune circle meant to ward off intruders; the fortnight before, a cantrip which would turn the head of a man into that of a beast.

Today, tucked away in the closing paragraphs in an otherwise dull treatise on the uses of lamb's blood, Arthur finds a spell that could be salvation for him and his brothers.  
-

* * *

-  
Arthur is eager to share his discovery with Alasdair and Michael, but he doesn't even get to finish the preamble to his announcement before Dylan bursts into the dining room, looking windswept and distinctly harassed.

"Sorry I'm late," he says, not looking up from the coat buttons he's clumsily trying to unfasten. "I got caught up in—"

"It's all right," Alasdair tells him, "Grandfather's gone down to London on business, and taken most of the henchmen with him. They won't be back till weekend."

"He has? That's wonderful." A smile blossoms on Dylan's lips, but it withers and dies almost instantly. "Well, not _wonderful_ , of course. I don't think that… Perhaps I should have said good luck? Or… Or maybe good timing? I just meant—"

"We know what you meant," Alasdair cuts in, nipping Dylan's nervous babbling in the bud before he works himself up into an even greater state of agitation, by which time there will be no hope of stopping it save that he talks himself hoarse or fortuitously falls unconscious. "We're all glad he's fucked off, as well. Now" – Alasdair's nose wrinkles, as though finding the words taste as unpleasant as he already considers the subject matter – "how did your meeting with Lovino go."

"Oh, it was fantastic, thanks." Dylan's smile returns, softer around the edges than before. His eyes also take on the faraway, dreamy cast they otherwise only display when he's reading one of his dreadful, turgid romance novels. "Very, um, very productive."

As Dylan's shirt collar is askew and his trousers badly rumpled, Arthur shudders to think how the negations were performed.

As does Alasdair, apparently. "You can spare us the gory details," he says, looking vaguely sickened, "but did he agree to help?"

"He said he'd get some of his people on the case."

"Or," Arthur says, "we could go after the Frog ourselves."

Alasdair asks, "How?" at the same time as Dylan says, "Why? Grandfather's always said that The Shrike's henchmen are the best trackers in the Guild. They're bound to be able to find him before we can."

"Then why haven't they unearthed his safe house yet?" Arthur asks. "You know The Shrike will have tried; all of the Council have, at one time or another. But we have what they didn't." He lifts the book from the seat of the chair next to him, where he'd stashed it before Alasdair and Michael arrived, to better produce it with a flourish when the requisite moment arose. He does so now, and then places it reverentially on the table. "Magic."

"Did you steal that from Grandfather's library?" Alasdair asks. At Arthur's nod, he laughs. "Fucking hell, Wart. The old bastard's not even been gone two hours and you've already descended into barbarism."

Arthur ignores him. He's found it's the best course of action when he needs to work, otherwise he'd never get anything done save for arguing with his brother. The urge to throttle Alasdair does still assail him, but faint enough now after all the years he's spent repressing it that he can discount it with relative ease.

"There's a tracking spell in here," he says, "that's said to be very powerful. The incantation seems straightforward enough, and it only requires a few, simple ingredients besides. Most of them should be easy enough to get hold of.

"We no doubt have plenty of rosemary and sage in the kitchens, and, presumably, we can buy some lamb's blood from the butcher's in the village. There's just one more requirement, and that could prove impossible to supply, I'm afraid. We need something that used to belong to the Frog."

Dylan frowns. "I don't think we have anything of his. Except maybe…" He blushes, and sounds embarrassed to be voicing his next suggestion, which, Arthur thinks when he hears it, he has every right to be. "Alasdair had him locked up in the dungeons last night, and maybe he happened to leave a few hairs behind. Or, I don't know, some of his skin cells on the shackles? Do you think that would work?"

"I don't imagine so," Arthur says. "It has to be something bigger. A possession of some sort. I was hoping that he might have accidentally left something behind after one of his other break-ins. A lockpick, perhaps?

"We should check Grandfather's study again. If he ever found anything like that, he would have stored it his desk. If we have no luck there, then—"

"I have something that used to belong to Francis," Alasdair says, and evidently solely for the edification of the table, because he keeps his eyes trained on it unwaveringly even when Arthur and Dylan turn to look at him in question. "It's a… I think it's a silk scarf, or something like. He left it here about six years ago, and I kept it because…"

He hesitates, his mouth opening and closing in silence whilst he struggles to provide some sort of rational explanation for his actions.

Arthur doesn't need - and _definitely_ doesn't want - to hear one. It really doesn't bear thinking about, either.

"I don't care why you kept it," he says hurriedly. "Just go and fetch it now. Dylan," he nods towards his brother, "you go down into the village and buy the blood. Michael and I'll get the herbs. Then we'll all meet back here at two o'clock and perform the spell."

If it's as effective as the book claims, then, with a bit of luck, they'll have the Frog under lock and key by the end of the day.


	8. Chapter 8

Even though Francis had reluctantly had to leave the greater part of his wardrobe behind in Paris, he still hadn't anticipated it would be so difficult to dig out a suitable civilian outfit for Alfred to change into. Alfred has no more than a few centimetres of height on him, and he's lightly muscled for a superhero, only a little broader in the shoulders and thighs than Francis is himself.

Or, at least, as Francis _visualises_ himself to be.

He's been so focused on his investigations these past six months that he hasn't had the time to spare for his normally vigorous exercise regime, and whilst his recent diet of coffee, cereal bars, and cigarettes might – just barely – be enough to keep soul together, his body has clearly suffered for it.

There are no full-length mirrors in the safe house, and Francis has been able to fool himself that the skeletal cast of the reflection he sees in his shaving mirror is a trick of the bathroom's harsh, fluorescent lighting; that the increasingly loose fit of his clothes is the fault of the drycleaner's he has been forced to patronise due to his reduced circumstances, and their ignorance about how to properly care for such fine fabrics.

The shirt and trousers he eventually selects for Alfred were once a comfortably loose fit on Francis, now they hang from him like sacking and he'd rotated to the very back of his closet, deeming them unfit for day-to-day wear.

On Alfred, they are as tight as a second skin, seams and buttons practically creaking under the strain. It's a sobering sight; proof positive that Francis himself is just as diminished as his wardrobe.

It was even less of a wonder now that Alasdair Kirkland had been unmoved by his attempt at flirtation. He must look like a horror in his work suit.

Still, it's of little consequence. There will be plenty of time to regain all that he's lost later, and there are more pressing matters to attend to now. He's already wasted far too much time with this, as it is.

"Well, it is _slightly_ less conspicuous than your costume, at least," he tells Alfred, whose ruddy cheeks and pained expression suggest that he is finding it a struggle to breathe. "As long as you don't make any sudden movements, you should be fine until we get to Chester. Once we're there, I can buy you something more suitable to wear."  
-

* * *

-  
Whilst Alfred seems set on grabbing the nearest garments to hand that are something approximating his size in the first shop they stepped foot inside, Francis has a more measured approach in mind, Alfred's evident and continued discomfort notwithstanding.

The Vargases are always impeccably turned out, and he wants to ensure they make a favourable first impression. Lovino's goodwill towards them is bound to be limited, and they'll have to wring out every last drop of it that they possibly can.

As a result, finding 'something more suitable' takes the best part of two hours, by which time Alfred's temper is snappish and his stomach growling, his superheroic metabolism clearly unable to be sustained on croissants alone.

Fearing the onset of another fainting spell, Francis revises his plans to include a visit to one of the better local restaurants. There, Alfred inhales his food with the rapacious speed and appetite of an animal recently awoken from hibernation, but Francis lingers over all three courses, savouring each morsel and every mouthful of his glass of wine: a pleasure he has otherwise denied himself for far, far too long.

When he orders a digestif, Alfred – who had long since finished his own food and postprandial coffee and has been occupying himself by attempting to construct an origami swan out of his napkin for the past five minutes or more – frowns and says, "I thought you said this meeting with your friend was urgent?"

It is, of course, though Francis had found it seemed less and less so the closer to it they came. He'd realised he was procrastinating around the time he sent Alfred back to the dressing room to try on a fourth near-identical shirt over three hours ago now, but had managed to persuade himself that it was vitally important to find the exact shade of blue that would best complement Alfred's eyes, and to force down a dessert even though his stomach was already so achingly full he felt nauseous.

Lovino was never one of his closest friends, but he had, in the end, proven himself to be one of the most loyal. Perhaps because he disliked the Kirklands almost as fully as Francis did himself, he did not immediately turn his back when Francis was disbarred from the Guild, and for three years afterwards, he'd passed on whatever dribs and drabs of information about George Kirkland's movements and dealings as came his way.

But he was also a dutiful grandson, and when Francis was upgraded from 'persona non grata' to 'apprehend on sight' by the Guild, Lovino had followed The Shrike's lead, as he always did.

The last time Francis tried to meet with him, he called in his grandfather's henchmen, and Francis had had to make a swift exit from the antique shop via the window in Feliciano's attic studio. They'd pursued him relentlessly: across the rooftops of Chester, and then through the fields and woods beyond, practically to the doorstep of his safe house.

He'd eluded them only by overnighting in a drainage ditch, half-submerged in a puddle and covered by a pile of leaves. At daybreak, he'd snuck down to the safe house, then spent the next two days tossing and turning in his narrow bed, wracked with fever and hallucinating hands growing out of the walls.

It had rather soured him on the idea of ever seeking Lovino's aid again, but needs must and Lovino had at least looked apologetic before siccing five of The Shrike's best attack dogs on him. As hope goes, it's only the very slenderest of threads, but Francis has so little left to him now that he has no choice except to try and grab onto it and trust that it will hold.

He downs the brandy so quickly that it is useless for its intended purpose, and when he gets up from his chair after paying their bill his stomach churns and his vision swims, vivid spots of colour flickering in front of his eyes. He sways on his feet and likely would have lost his balance entirely had Alfred not been so prompt in laying a steadying hand against his back.

"I think," Francis tells him, "that last glass of wine wasn't one of my brightest ideas."

Neither were the two before that, most likely, but then he hadn't thought to account for the effect that his recent abstemious lifestyle has clearly had on his tolerance level. Once, he could have drunk at the same rate all through the afternoon and long into the night, and still his hands would have been steady enough to pick even the most fiendish of locks.

"Are you going to be okay to walk?" Alfred asks with some concern.

Francis nods. He will have to be.

Their progress through Chester is by necessity slow, but Francis manages to keep upright and moving despite his shaking legs and pounding head, which, to be frank, is a minor miracle. Alfred certainly looks dubious about his chances of performing such a feat, and he keeps a weather eye on Francis throughout their journey, one hand hovering near Francis' elbow just in case he needs to save him from toppling over once more.

Such treatment is humiliating, and Francis wishes he could protest against it or at least offer an apology, but each step he takes is a trial of both effort and concentration, and he can't spare enough air for either. By the time they fetch up at the Vargases' antiques shop, he's winded and soaked through with sweat.

Whilst Francis struggles to catch his breath and bring some semblance of order back to his now thoroughly rumpled clothes and hair, Alfred paces back and forth along the short length of pavement outside the shop, examining its frontage closely. He looks distinctly unimpressed by what he sees.

"It's not much of a supervillain lair," is his final assessment.

"I would hardly call Lovino and Feliciano supervillains," Francis says. "They're forgers by trade, and this is their workshop. Their grandfather, The Shrike, is a member of the Council of 13, but he has his own… lair, as you put it, elsewhere.

"It would still pay to be cautious, though. There are usually a handful of The Shrike's henchmen on the premises, and they're some of the most highly-skilled in the Guild."

"Right." Alfred nods once, determined, his hands curling into loose fists at his sides. "Are we going to go in, then?"

Francis supposes there's no putting it off any longer. He takes one last deep, calming breath and eases the shop's door open.

Lovino is standing behind the counter, idly flicking through a magazine, and he looks up with bored lassitude when the bell set above the door rings out. His eyes widen in alarm, one hand slipping beneath the countertop where Francis knows there is a panic button installed.

"Please don't, Lovi," Francis says, throwing his own hands up, open-palmed, so that Lovino can see at a glance he is unarmed. "I just need to talk to you for a moment. It's about the Kirklands."

Although Lovino doesn't move his arm again, no alarm sounds, which suggests he is at least considering Francis' words.

Encouraged by this response, Francis leaves the relative safety of the doorway and inches a little closer to the counter. He can hear Alfred's heavy footfalls following on behind him, and Lovino's eyes widen yet further.

"Who are you?" he asks suspiciously.

"This is Alfred," Francis says. "He's a… He's a friend of mine."

Lovino languidly rakes his gaze over Alfred – who is quite a striking sight in his newly flattering clothes, Francis has to admit – head to toe, then raises a salacious eyebrow.

"Not that sort of friend," Francis says with a sigh. Lovino, like many other people of Francis' earlier acquaintance, seems to be under the impression that he can barely walk from one end of a street to the other without handsome men like Alfred hurling themselves at his feet. It's a somewhat flattering delusion – especially given his current state – but a delusion all the same, and Francis' love life has always been more bountiful in their imaginations than it ever has been in reality. Nowadays, he might as well be a monk, and the idea makes feel a little wistful. "We're… Well, I suppose you could call us work friends. Colleagues, of a sort."

"So, he's not Guild?" Lovino asks.

"No, he's not Guild."

Thankfully, Lovino doesn't question Alfred's credentials any further, as Francis would hate to have to admit that he's actually a League member, or near enough as would make no odds. No doubt, if he did, then Lovino would overcome his chronic squeamishness when it came to doling out violence and shoot them on the spot himself.

Instead, he beckons them both forward, and asks, "What do you need to know about the Kirklands, then?"

"I've finally managed to get my hands on one of those books you told me about," Francis says. "I was hoping you would try and translate it for me."

Lovino grabs the book from Francis eagerly enough, but his excitement soon palls once he begins to study its pages. "Shit, this is going to take a while, Francis," he says. "I don't even recognise the script it's written in."  
Which isn't particularly surprising to hear, but it is disappointing. Francis had never expected to make quick work of George Kirkland's downfall, and he'd endured the past five years of painstaking research and frustrating failure with a patience he hadn't believed himself capable of before, but now he's finally made one single, tiny step towards that end, everything suddenly feels a lot more urgent; the prospect of any delay almost insupportable.

And yet he's going to have to make Lovino's task even more difficult for him. "I'm afraid I can't let you keep the book," he says. "You'll have to make a copy. And you can't go to anyone else for help with this, not even Feli."

Lovino scowls, and grumbles, and calls Francis unreasonable, but does eventually relent, on the proviso that Francis does something for him, too.

Which is only to be expected, and Francis accedes readily. "I am entirely at your disposal, Lovi."

"Good," Lovino says. "Then you can find my grandfather for me. He never came home from that party at the Kirklands' last night. I sent a team of henchmen out to look for him, but they won't be allowed into the house, of course."

"You think he's still there, then?" Francis asks.

"I don't know." Lovino shrugs. "I asked Dylan to search for him, too, and he did say he couldn't find any sign of him, but—"

"But you don't trust him to be telling the truth," Francis guesses.

"I do trust him," Lovino says hurriedly. "Mostly. But he's not exactly… He's not very good at this sort of thing."

"And liable to miss any 'sign' that doesn't have a huge arrow pointing down at it, covered in flashing lights." Francis doesn't know Dylan particularly well, and though he does appear to be bumblingly ineffectual on the surface, Francis is more inclined to believe that he's a duplicitous liar, just like the rest of his family. Lovino has always been strangely fond of him, though, so it's presumably easier for him to ascribe Dylan's failures to his personal shortcomings rather than maleficence. "I'll go and see if there's anything he's overlooked."

"Thanks, Francis." Lovino smiles, but it's a sharp, brittle thing and quickly falls apart. "I know I'm probably worrying over nothing. I mean, they've been friends for years, but…" He swallows hard. "But they've been arguing a lot lately. Grandfather hasn't said why, exactly, but I got the impression it has something to do with the Council of 13. I can't stop thinking about what you said about your mother…"

Lovino's face flushes puce and he falters into silence, apparently unable to continue, but Francis doesn't need him to, because the similarity in their circumstances had struck him just as soundly. The very last thing his mother had told him before setting out on that last, fateful visit to the manor, was that she'd uncovered something suspicious about George Kirkland's position in the Council and intended to confront him about it.

In a way, Francis supposes he should be thankful for The Shrike's disappearance, because he doubts Lovino would have allowed him inside the shop otherwise, never mind agreed to help him. But he doesn't; he feels only sympathy and a grim trace of regret that he hadn't been quicker about his work and exposed George Kirkland before he had chance to hurt anyone else.

"I'll find him," Francis says, and, on impulse, he reaches out and takes hold of Lovino's hand. Lovino looks startled, but doesn't try to pull away. "I promise you."


	9. Chapter 9

At its core, magic is a straightforward art, and most simple spells entail nothing more than knowing the right words, and having the will and strength to give them form. Even the more complex can be performed without a panoply of props and accoutrements, and Alasdair has never come across one before that needed anything other than a few herbs or crystals to boost power, or runes to improve focus.

He's certainly never needed to wear a _costume_ , but Arthur has dug one up, nonetheless: a black, velvety floor-length robe covered in thaumaturgical symbols embroidered in silvery thread. Alasdair hasn't the faintest idea where he might have got it from, or why the hell he's chosen to wear it.

"What's that in aid of?" he asks, gesturing towards the ridiculous thing. "You look like a twat."

"You have no sense of occasion, do you?" Arthur says, shaking his head as if in despair. "No respect for the mystic tradition."

Their 'mystic tradition', if they do have any to speak of, is a purely practical one and has certainly never involved playing dress-up before. Alasdair opens his mouth with the intention of remonstrating further, but Arthur turns away from him, pulling up the hood of his robes as he does so, which leaves his face wreathed in deep shadow.

 _Christ Almighty._

"I've already drawn out the rune spiral," Arthur continues, laying a sheet of pale fabric across the top of the dining room table.

Closer examination reveals it to be an old duvet cover, and Alasdair can still pick out the pale outlines of a chintzy floral pattern beneath the swirling lines of lamb's blood Arthur has daubed over it. They really are a Mickey Mouse operation.

Arthur places a sprig of dried rosemary and sage at each of the spiral's cardinal points, and then says, "Now, we should all link hands…"

The room suddenly becomes very silent and still, the atmosphere seeming to grow thick and heavy with the combined weight of their collective embarrassment. As a rule – and excepting Dylan, who has a propensity towards shoulder squeezes and springing drunken hugs on the unwary – they are not a physically demonstrative family. For his own part, Alasdair hasn't held anyone's hand since junior school, and is not inclined towards breaking his twenty-year-long dry spell with one of his brothers.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Arthur says. "Don't be so pathetic."

With one hand, he grabs hold of Michael's before he can slink away from the table, with the other, he grasps Alasdair's, sinking his short nails into the thin skin between Alasdair's knuckles and clinging on for dear life, even when Alasdair tries, desperately, to shake him off.

"The spell will be more effective if we combine our efforts," Arthur says. "And we all want it to work, don't we?"

Even Alasdair can't argue against that, though he still can't claim to be happy about the idea. Under silent protest, he offers his free hand out towards Dylan, who accepts it readily before interlacing his fingers with Michael's and completing the circle.

Arthur begins to chant. Alasdair doesn't recognise the words he's using, but suspects they might be Welsh, given their lilting cadence. Despite his lack of understanding, the words resonate deep within his chest, and their vibrations rise up through his throat to his tongue, where they crackle, effervescent and stinging, until he opens his mouth to give them voice. Michael follows suit a moment later, and then finally Dylan, whose crisp, clear tenor rings out above the rest of them. It sounds like he's singing.

The air thrums, coruscating with dancing points of light which slowly draw together, coalesce and spark brighter, until only a single glowing orb remains, almost two feet in diameter and reeking of sulphur.

Arthur abruptly drops Alasdair's hand. "Well, that's it primed," he says. "Now we just need to give it a target."

He looks at Alasdair expectantly. Alasdair takes Francis' scarf out of his jacket pocket, but finds himself reluctant, at the last, to relinquish it.

Francis had accidentally left it behind after his last legitimate visit to the manor, and back then, Alasdair had had ever intention of giving it back to him the next time they met.

But they had never met again on anything approaching friendly terms, and though he should have binned the small scrap of fabric years ago, he'd kept it because it looked expensive and its vibrant colours were beautiful. Because it was soft and silky and a pleasure to touch.

Because it smelt of Francis. Not that he'd sniffed it. Much. Certainly not anymore, because the faint traces of Francis' scent had faded long since, and it had always been a fucking creepy thing to do, anyway.

He really should get rid of it, rid himself of any temptation to backslide into bad habits past. He thrusts the scarf into Arthur's waiting hands before he has chance to think better of it, and Arthur unceremoniously tosses it into the orb as though it's nothing more than a piece of rubbish.

The orb briefly flares brighter, and then levitates of the table and begins to float towards the dining room door.

"We should follow it," Arthur says to Alasdair, and then, turning to Dylan and Michael adds, "You two go down to the dungeons and prepare one of the interrogation rooms. We'll bring the Frog there once we capture him."  
-

* * *

-  
The orb leads Alasdair and Arthur through the manor and across the grounds to the walled orchard, where the garish red, white, and blue costume of the superhero trailing after Francis as he sidles through the trees would have made them easy to spot even without an eldritch globe of light bobbing in the air above their heads.

"Well, that was surprisingly easy," Alasdair says, but then he hesitates, unsure of what he should do next.

He has a stun gun holstered on his belt, and a whole host of nasty hexes at his fingertips, but he's never had to use force against Francis before. Normally, he gives himself up as soon as he's spotted because he knows that he has a far better chance of leaving the manor uninjured if he effects his escape from the dungeons rather than making a break for it outside with Alasdair and any number of Grandfather's henchmen on his tail.

But today, he runs. Alasdair's hand drops automatically to his stun gun, but he can't bring himself to draw it.

Arthur glares at him, snaps, "Oh, for fuck's sake," and then shouts out a few words of power.

The apple trees shake as their roots swell beneath them, expanding until they break free of the soil and slither through the leaf mulch towards Francis and the superhero. Francis makes a valiant effort to kick them away, but they're too fast and far, far too strong, and they swiftly wrap tight around his ankles and drag him down to the ground.

The superhero manages to evade them for longer, tearing through them with his bare hands as if they're made of nothing but paper. But the roots have numbers on their side, they have him surrounded, and they bring him to bay too soon enough.

The roots then snake over them, twisting around their prostrate bodies until they're snugly cocooned and held completely immobile.

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Arthur's small smile radiates smug self-satisfaction. "Maybe you can step in now? Do you think you can carry both of them? That's more your wheelhouse than mine."

Alasdair looks at him askance, because he might be strong but he's not fucking _Hercules_ , and neither Francis nor the superhero are exactly small men. And besides, he's never touched Francis anywhere other than the shoulder before, and the thought of putting his hands elsewhere now, even if it is only in service of slinging Francis over his shoulder, is a distinctly uncomfortable one, especially with Francis all trussed up and unable to voice any objections to such treatment.

"I'll take the superhero," he tells his brother. "You deal with Francis."

"Fine," Arthur huffs peevishly. "But I hope you understand that I'm going to have to _drag_ him. If he happens to get a few cuts and bruises in the process, that's on you; don't you dare come whinging to me about it."  
-

* * *

-  
Alasdair makes no such complaints, but Francis more than makes up for his silence on the matter.

He complains about the scratches on his legs and the lump forming where Arthur had 'accidentally' knocked his head against a doorframe. He complains about the tightness of the restraints binding him to his chair; about being separated from the superhero, Alfred; about his mussed hair, ripped catsuit, and having to look at Arthur's face.

He airs each grievance at high volume and voluble length, completely ignoring Arthur's – increasingly vociferous – questions concerning the whereabouts of their grandfather's stolen property.

Arthur's patience, hardly a plentiful resource at the best of times, gives out at around the ten-minute mark, and he snarls, "That's it! I'm done playing nice."

He strides over to the brushed steel trolley he had wheeled into conspicuous view in front of Francis' chair, and plucks up one of the torture implements from the collection arrayed upon it.

It's a long, thin knife, heavily serrated and wickedly sharp, and he passes it from hand to hand as though testing its heft and thinking how best to use it. He won't, though; Alasdair's sure of that.

Arthur is the only one of the four of them that Grandfather had even fleetingly considered might be fit to take over the family business one day, and he'd taken him along on a few low-level heists as a training exercise. Even though he'd only been acting as a lookout, Arthur was so sickened at the thought that he might have to seriously hurt someone that he'd been a bag of nerves and bollocksed it all up as a result.

Grandfather had given up on them, then – though Alasdair can't imagine why he'd ever expected any other outcome; he'd pushed them all so hard into academia as teenagers and young adults that it shouldn't have come as a surprise that they'd turned out more bookish than ruthless – and pinned his hopes on his as yet hypothetical great-grandchildren, who aren't likely to come about any time soon given his inability to find anyone he deems suitable to marry his grandchildren off to.

Just as Alasdair had predicted, Arthur eventually hurls the knife back down un-brandished. "You… You take over from here," he tells Alasdair on his way out of the interrogation room. "I'll go and work on Alfred."

As soon as the door slams closed behind him, Alasdair pushes the trolley back to its usual place below the two-way mirror, then moves to inspect Francis' restraints. His objections clearly hadn't been entirely empty air, because Arthur _had_ buckled them far too tightly, and they've already begun to chafe his wrists raw. And no wonder, because they're little better than skin and bone, no padding of flesh left to protect them.

Of late, Alasdair has been so fixated on ignoring his long-simmering attraction to Francis, so determined to not let his gaze stray to points both north and south of his neck, that he'd completely failed to notice just how badly his condition has deteriorated.

It's impossible to overlook at such close quarters. He doesn't smell of expensive cologne as he used to, but exertion sweat, cigarette smoke, and cheap soap, and his catsuit, which once – much to Alasdair's consternation – clung indecently close to every last contour of his body now hangs loose and baggy. His eyes, when Alasdair finally gathers the courage to make contact with them, are bloodshot and dull with fatigue.

He's clearly been running himself ragged. Alasdair undoes the arm restraints and lets them fall away.

"What did you do that for?" Francis asks, brow furrowing in confusion. "I could just punch you out now and run away."

"No, you couldn't," Alasdair says. "Last time you tried, you didn't even leave a bruise on me. And you broke your hand."

"True." Francis flexes his right hand and winces slightly, as if in remembered pain. "It still twinges sometimes, on cold nights."

"Sorry," Alasdair says on reflex, which makes Francis laugh.

"There's no need to apologise," he says. "It was my fault more than yours, for underestimating the thickness of your skull. Now" – his eyelids droop to half-mast, and he glances up at Alasdair through his lashes – "are you going to carry on from where your brother left off."

Alasdair recognises the expression, and the deep purr that has crept into Francis' voice. He's about to say something ostensibly flattering about Alasdair's hands; something that will make him flustered and incapable of speech, even though he knows Francis doesn't mean a word of it.

"I don't care if you want to keep it," Alasdair says, heading him off at the pass, "or even if you've already sold it on, just tell me what it is you stole and—"

"You mean you don't know?"

"I know it was important enough that Grandfather didn't even trust the vault to keep it safe. Other than that?" Alasdair shrugs. "Not a clue."

Francis raises an eyebrow sceptically. "And you expect me to believe that?"

"I don't know what you believe about me and my brothers, but the truth is… Well, I'm a glorified security guard, Arthur's a librarian, and Dylan's a sodding _accountant_. We're _grunts_ , Francis. Grandfather never tells us _anything_."

"Really?" Francis drawls. He still looks unconvinced.

"Really," Alasdair says. "Look, you know we're all classified as level one villains – lowest of the fucking low – and we're never invited to any of the important Guild meetings. Whatever it is Grandfather does, we're not involved. Honestly, we just want to know what you took so we can replace it before he notices it's gone. It doesn't matter to us whether it's the same one or not."

"And if the thing I stole could prove dangerous to your grandfather?" Francis asks. "What then?"

Even in this sound-proofed room with all of its surveillance equipment disconnected, Alasdair's chest still tightens in fear when he reiterates, "I don't care."

"Even if it could destroy him?" Francis asks, his voice dropping low.

"Especially then," Alasdair admits in little more than a whisper, and amazed by his own daring all the while. "The old bastard's a tyrant, and it's likely overdue. I know the Guild all think the sun shines out of his arse, but I'm sure he's up to something behind their backs. Dylan and I were here that night your mum came to have it out with him, we heard the shouting, and we know she didn't leave again. We've been trying to figure out what happened to her, but—"

"You have?" Francis sounds shocked.

"Of course," Alasdair says, slightly affronted, although he can't particularly blame Francis for his surprise. To him, Alasdair and his brothers must seem like Grandfather's clockwork soldiers, tick-tock following his every order, and, to be fair, they've always taken great pains to appear that way to outsiders. What happened to Francis' mother has hung like a black cloud over them all these past five years, though, and it's been getting harder and harder to keep up the façade of late. "She was a lovely woman, and she didn't deserve whatever he did to her."

Francis takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Why didn't you tell me this before?" he asks.

Barring the first time they spoke as teenagers – when Alasdair had been so intimidated by Francis' easy confidence and, in retrospect, insouciant physicality that he'd been shamed into silence, and Francis had talked at him almost without pause for two hours – this is probably the longest conversation they've ever had. "You never gave me the chance," he says.

Francis' lips flatten out into a taut, unhappy line, tears bead at the corner of his eyes, and Alasdair wants, quite desperately, to place a hand on his shoulder or knee as Dylan might, or maybe even draw him into a hug.

But he's well aware that Francis doesn't like him and wouldn't take any sort of comfort from his touch, so he simply watches and waits, though not in any degree of hope. Francis has no real reason to take him at his word or trust that he's telling the truth.

Except, perhaps, desperation, and having nowhere else left to turn. Alasdair can't think of any other explanation for Francis to tell him, "It was a book," in a hoarse voice caught on the cusp of breaking. "I don't know what kind, but I've left a copy with Lovino to translate. The original is in my safehouse."


	10. Chapter 10

Arthur's first port of call after leaving Francis is the darkened observation booth alongside Interrogation Room 2, from which he can watch Alfred in secrecy through the two-way mirror, safely ensconced behind several feet of Kevlar and reinforced concrete.

In the days that Grandfather still considered Arthur a suitable heir, he had brought him down here to observe him at his work whenever he apprehended a superhero who had been skulking about the estate.

All of _his_ captives had struggled against their restraints. They'd cursed at him, vowed bloody revenge, and then later, after the trolley had been wheeled forward and Grandfather had smiled that horrible, humourless smile, they'd screamed.

(Sometimes, so loudly that they could be heard in the house as a sharp, sustained wailing note, robbed of all terror by sound-proofing and distance. Arthur and his brothers had been sickened by the sound, even so, but it was so much worse to hear it in close quarters, and worse yet to see what caused it.

Arthur had spent most of his time in the observation booth on his knees, vomiting into his cupped hands because Grandfather wouldn't stand for a mess being made of his floor and refused to allow Arthur a more suitable receptacle. 'It'd only encourage you,' he'd said, 'and you need to grow some balls. You won't get far in our line of work if you're squeamish.')

But Alfred is neither struggling nor shouting; instead, he is slumped as far down in his chair as his bonds will allow, his knees splayed out wide, eyes closed, and head lolling back. He looks, at first glance, to be sleeping, but Arthur had witnessed Power-Man engaging in just such a charade in the past, and it hadn't ended well for Grandfather.

He enters the interrogation room with his stun gun in hand and a hex on his lips, and approaches Alfred carefully, keeping his weight on his trailing foot for as long as possible in order to better turn tail and run at the first sign of violence on the Alfred's part. His unnatural strength was obvious, but he may have other powers, ones with a large area of effect or projectile component, so it's only sensible to be cautious.

Alfred doesn't stir, not even when Arthur is close enough that he could reach out and touch him if he had either the nerve or desire to do such a thing. Unbelievably, it really does seem as though he's dozed off, as blithe and unconcerned as if he were tucked up safe in his own bed, wherever that might be.

In sleep, his face is completely relaxed, expression serene, and Arthur first impulse is to creep out of the room as quietly as he'd crept in rather than disturb him.

His second thoughts are much more rational ones – he is, after all, being ridiculous – and he acts on them promptly by bellowing, "Alfred!" in the man's ear.

Alfred startles awake, blinks blearily at Arthur, and then tries to move his right arm, presumably with the intention of straightening his glasses, which had slipped down his nose as he slept. When it remains pinned to the chair arm, he turns his head to blink, with equal bleariness, at the wide leather bands buckled around his wrists. "What the hell…?"

"You're my prisoner," Arthur says. "And I'm going to need you to answer some questions for me."

"Ah, okay," Alfred says. He sounds completely unperturbed by the news, as though Arthur had instead informed him that there was a slight chance of rain showers that afternoon. "Hey, could you fix my glasses for me? You're just a big pink blur at the moment."

Arthur should refuse – he is supposed to be _interrogating_ Alfred after all, which would, by the very nature of the act, preclude such a helpful gesture – but finds himself pressing a finger to the bridge of Alfred's glasses anyway, and sliding them back up his nose to their proper place.

"Thanks!" Alfred looks Arthur up and down, and then breaks out a dazzlingly broad grin. "You've got a costume, too! Francis said you guys don't go in for that sort of thing."

"We don't," Arthur says slowly, wondering now whether the glasses had failed to correct Alfred's vision as they should, or else that he had suffered a blow to the head during his capture that had caused him to start hallucinating capes and spandex.

Alfred's eyebrows arc high. "So… that's just your normal, everyday outfit, then?"

"Of course it—" Arthur glances down, expecting to see the perfectly ordinary lounge suit he'd donned that morning, but is instead faced with the dreadful realisation that he'd forgotten to take off his robe before he and Alasdair set out in pursuit of the orb.

When he was younger, he'd begged Grandfather to allow him to buy a similar garment, arguing that it was simply a tool of the magical trade, no different to a scientist's lab coat or chef's apron. Grandfather had – quite rightly – pointed out that he'd always managed to cast his spells perfectly well without one before, and it was nothing more than a 'needless frippery'.

He'd tried to be sanguine about the decision, but every time he walked through the corridor outside the library, passing portraits of his illustrious forebears standing tall and commanding in their flamboyant robes, the need to possess his own simply grew.

Eventually, he had raided his mum's old craft supplies, determined to make one himself. He'd had to work in secret, because Grandfather thought needlework was a pointless hobby – something he'd also berated Mum about, though she'd cheerfully ignored him – and his skills were rusty with disuse, but he'd been pleased with the fruits of his labour, all the same.

Pleased, but also ashamed, for having gone against Grandfather's word in such a deceitful fashion, and so anxious that he might be found out that he'd ended up hiding the robe under a loose floorboard in his bedroom, unworn.

And there it probably would have stayed until the house and everything else within it disintegrated into dust had the confluence of Grandfather's absence and Arthur's discovery of the tracking spell not brought about what seemed to be the perfect opportunity to dig it out again.

In a small, secret part of his heart, Arthur had hoped his brothers would be impressed by his ingenuity and handiwork, but none of them had even noticed save Alasdair, and he was hardly complimentary.

Studying the robe now under the harsh light of the interrogation room, Arthur has to concede that Alasdair may, just this once, be right. He probably does look like a twat. The black velvet, that he had once thought so plush and luxurious, is actually balding in spots, and some of the sigils he had stitched upon it are misshapen and trailing loose threads, missed in his haste to get the damn thing finished.

Still, it's too late to do anything about it now, so Arthur throws back his shoulders, holds his head high, and tries his best to instead look like a man supremely confident in both his position and his fashion choices.

"That's of no consequence," he belatedly concludes. "And I'm supposed to be the one asking questions here, not you."

To that end, he fetches the trolley of torture implements and parks it in front of Alfred, just as he had done with the Frog. Alfred examines it with open interest, his eyes untinged by fear. "Is that a _thumbscrew_?" he asks, his voice bright with what sounds to be morbid fascination.

"Did you not hear what I just said?" Arthur sighs, picking up a long knife from the trolley. "Look, if you're having trouble concentrating, I have ways of bringing things into… sharper relief."

It's exactly the sort of thing Grandfather would say, and Arthur runs his thumb along the length of the blade just like he would, glaring at Alfred in what he hopes is a portentous fashion all the while.

Alfred bursts out laughing. "Oh my god, you guys actually do that?" he asks. "I thought it was just a James Bond thing."

"Do what?" Arthur snaps, irritated by his reaction.

"The _puns_. Do the Guild train you to use them?"

"They advise doing so in certain circumstances," Arthur says. "Section 32, subpart B of the Guild guidelines: Using Incongruous Levity to Unsettle Your Opponent. It can be a very—"

Alfred's renewed laughter drowns him out. He laughs so long and so hard that it appears to pain him, his expression twisting unhappily as his face turns an anoxic shade of purple. "I think I might have sprained something," he wheezes. "Okay, that's enough. I yield. Ask me whatever you like. Just… no more puns."

Taking him at his word, Arthur replaces the knife and asks, "How long have you known the Frog?"

"The who?" Alfred looks genuinely perplexed.

Arthur sighs again. "The thief we caught you with, trespassing in the orchard."

"Is that his supervillain name?"

"No, of course not. I don't think he even has one," Arthur says. "We don't dignify him with his real name around here, so I suppose it's become a… nickname of sorts."

"Because he's French?" Alfred's lips purse tight as if in distaste. "That's pretty xenophobic of you."

"Well… I…" Arthur had never considered it before, but, on brief reflection, supposes Alfred is right. Grandfather had always called Francis that, though, and Arthur had parroted him without thinking. After all these years, it's simply become habit. "I've never—"

He's saved from having to explain himself by Alasdair's noisy entrance, his heavy footsteps echoing deafeningly against the tiled walls as he stomps across the room, the— Francis following close at his heels.

"I knew I shouldn't have trusted _you_ to guard him properly," Arthur snarls, jabbing an accusatory finger in his brother's direction.

"Relax, Wart," Alasdair says with an infuriatingly placid smile. "It's okay; he won't try to get away."

On catching sight of the thief, Alfred gives a joyful shout of, "Francis!" and launches himself to his feet, ripping straight through his restraints as though they're made of nothing more than paper.

Alasdair whistles through his teeth. "Good job you managed not to rile him up," he says. "That could have been your neck."

Arthur very much doubts that, as the League likely frowns on that sort of behaviour, but he does have to wonder why he didn't break free earlier. Watching Alfred pour sympathy over Francis' near-invisible injuries, he can only conjecture that Alfred didn't want to make his escape before knowing where the thief was being held, and risk leaving him behind.

Arthur can't begin to imagine what on earth Francis might have done to secure that sort of loyalty from a _superhero_.

What had inspired Alasdair's is much more transparent, although Arthur wishes it wasn't as it betrays an appalling lack of taste on his brother's side.

"Now," Arthur says, "I acknowledge I might be better off not knowing this, but… Come, on; out with it. What did Francis promise to give you if you freed him?"

"It wasn't like that, Art." Blood suffuses Alasdair's cheeks, turning them a bashful shade of pink. "He wants to work with us."

The thought is a horrifying one. "And you _agreed_?"

"I did," Alasdair says. "I think we owe it to him to find out what really happened to his mum, don't you?"

Arthur had often wondered and worried over Mme Bonnefoy's fate, but Alasdair had never admitted to giving it any thought. Neither had Dylan or Michael, and they'd all been in the same room and heard the same ruckus that night. The walls in the manor have many ears, though, and they've learnt from bitter experience that it's safer not to say certain things out loud.

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Arthur asks. "I've looked around myself, but never found any sign that anything untoward happened to her. You know he'll have covered his tracks well."

"It was a book Francis stole last night," Alasdair says. "He doesn't know what it's about, but he thinks it might give us some answers." He glances at Arthur, sly and sidelong. "And help us bring down Grandfather."

"Good." Arthur's own vehemence surprises him, as does Alasdair's proud smile.

"Looks like he does have his uses, after all," Alasdair says, nudging Arthur's shoulder with his own.

Arthur had considered Francis a slimy snake even before his split with the Guild, and can't muster up even a fraction of his brother's obvious enthusiasm for the prospect of an alliance with him. "That remains to be seen," is, for the moment, as much as he's willing to concede.


	11. Chapter 11

Despite his ordeal, Alfred looks to be unscathed, albeit a little blurry around the edges. Francis blinks and rubs at his eyes, but Alfred remains slightly out of focus, as though viewed through a rain-streaked window pane. Yet another consequence of the long hours Francis has been forced to keep of late, most likely, but, as ever, there are more important things to worry about.

To wit: "I hope Arthur didn't have the chance to torture you, _mon ami_."

Alfred shakes his head. "He did pun at me, though. That was bad enough."

"He learnt that from his grandfather, no doubt," Francis says. "George Kirkland is very old-fashioned in his methods. I'm surprised you weren't threatened with the piranha tank."

"It looks like they roughed you up pretty good," Alfred says, his face distorting even further as he grimaces. Then, without even a breath of warning, he jabs a finger against the side of Francis' face, just below his eye.

For an instant, Francis' vision whites out entirely, and a bolt of pain shoots through his skull, so sharp and unexpected that it almost drives him to his knees.

Alfred catches him before he can fall, his hands wrapping tight around Francis' biceps and holding him steady. "What the hell did they do to you?" he asks, his voice rough and thrumming with anger.

Whilst his ire might be gratifying, Francis finds himself in the unprecedented position of wanting to shield the Kirkland brothers from it. He can't risk antagonising them now, not with the tantalising promise of an alliance hanging in the balance.

"Nothing deliberate," he tells Alfred. "My ride from the orchard simply wasn't as smooth as yours, and I bumped my head somewhere along the way."

"Okay." Alfred loosens his grip on Francis slowly and with obvious reluctance. "Are we working with them now?"

"Maybe," Francis says. "Alasdair claims he wants to, but I can't speak for his brothers. He did make it sound as if they're not as loyal to their grandfather as I've always assumed them to be, however."

He would have expected Arthur to baulk the hardest at the prospect of working against grand-père Kirkland's interests – he had always appeared to perform his duties with a gleeful enthusiasm that his brothers lacked – but he pronounces himself willing to help in any way that he can once he's concluded his hushed conversation with Alasdair, and even holds his hand out to shake and seal the deal.

Francis clasps it only lightly, quelling the compulsion to let his touch linger; to slide his fingers along Arthur's palm to brush against the thin skin on the underside of his wrist. Normally, he would have taken spiteful pleasure in doing so, enjoyed how easily he could break through Arthur's tightly-wound composure and goad him into bristling outrage, but such behaviour would be counterproductive now. If nothing else, he'd learnt restraint over these past few years, and denied himself far greater temptations.

Nevertheless, Arthur still scrubs his hand against the front of his ludicrous robe afterwards, as though even that brief moment of skin-to-skin contact has soiled him, and he avoids meeting Francis' eyes when he says, "So, where's this book, then?"

"In a safe place," Francis says. "Where it will remain until I know I can trust you. I did make a copy of it, though, which you can study if you wish."

Arthur looks set to protest that, but Alasdair abruptly claps his hands together, startling him into silence.

"We'd better go and let Dyl and Mikey know what's going on," he says, "make sure they're on board."

He leads them out through the corridor beyond the interrogation rooms, and thence to a seemingly empty and featureless alcove set into the dull, grey wall. He mutters something under his breath, wriggles his fingers, and a metal door resolves itself from the stone, which opens at Alasdair's touch, sliding back with a pneumatic hiss to reveal a perilously steep and narrow set of stairs.

Alasdair goes first, bounding up the steps, taking them two at a time. Francis follows at a more measured pace, because his legs are heavy, leaden, and his knees creak with the strain of lifting them. By the time he reaches the top of the stairs, he feels as though he has summitted Mont Blanc instead of travelling between two floors of the manor: weak, shaky, and gasping for breath.

Alfred barrels into his back before he's had chance to pause and try to recover his equilibrium, pressing him forward and out into the Kirkland's cavernous kitchen. Usually, it's a hive of activity, but it stands empty now, and the only sign of recent usage is a scattering of dried herbs dusted across the marble countertop nearest the pantry. Ever mindful of his wallet, grand-père Kirkland must have dismissed his staff for the duration of his business trip.

Which is fortuitous, insuring that there's no-one to witness them emerging from the secret door behind the wine rack save for Dylan, who rushes forward to greet them, wringing his hands together with obvious anxiety.

"They haven't escaped," Alasdair tells him. "We let them go. We're going to help Francis find out what happened to his mum."

Dylan nods, apparently accepting this without question. "And Grandfather's property?"

"A book," Alasdair says. "Could be helpful. Francis is going to keep hold of it for now, but he's got a copy we can look at. Right, Francis?"

Francis tries to reply, but he can't seem to drag enough air into his lungs to do so, and the words just rattle uselessly at the back of his throat.

"Francis?" Alasdair's face looms very close all of a sudden, as cloudy and indistinct as Alfred's had been earlier. "Shit, are you okay?"

Francis moves his head as best he can. He can't be sure whether it's in a shake or a nod.

"He's hit his head," Alfred says. His voice sounds reedy and distant, as though he's speaking from the bottom of a lift shaft. "He could have concussion."

"Shit," Alasdair says again, and he reaches out as if with the intention of taking hold of Francis shoulders, but stalls himself at the last moment, leaving his hands suspended just above them. "Well, your pupils aren't dilated, at least. Do you feel nauseous?"

"No," Francis eventually manages to force out. "I'm just… just tired."

"You look it," Alasdair says with a wry snort of laughter. "Dyl, do you know where Ten and Fourteen are?"

"Fourteen's still in bed, of course," Dylan says. "And Ten's having a nap in the conservatory, according to Michael."

"Is there any way of making that situation a little more permanent?"

"Fucking hell, Aly." Dylan sounds horrified. "The man's ninety-two years old! He came to all of our christenings! You can't possibly be thinking about—"

"Of course I'm not," Alasdair barks back. "I was _thinking_ about using magic. There must be some kind of Sleeping Beauty-type spell we could use on him so that he stays asleep until Grandfather gets back _and_ doesn't suffer for it."

"There is," Arthur says. "I'll just need some quartz and—"

"You go see to that," Alasdair says, "so we don't have to worry about him catching on to what we're doing. Once he's down for the count, then" – one of his hands descends, settling, light and cautious, against the side of Francis' neck – "we'll look into getting you to bed, okay?"  
-

* * *

-  
Alasdair had left Francis propped up against the fridge when he rushed off with the stated intention of sorting out his sleeping arrangements, and Francis has had neither the energy nor the inclination to move since. He'd leant back his head and allowed the droning hum of the fridge's fan to lull him into a light doze.

He's roused an indeterminate stretch of time later by the soft sound of Alasdair clearing his throat. "There might be a bit of a problem with that bed," he says apologetically. "Turns out Grandfather locked up all the guest rooms before he set off, and took the keys with him. Fuck knows why. You can…" Alasdair shifts his weight uneasily, his gaze darting towards Francis' face and then just as quickly skittering away again. "You can sleep in my room if you like, though."

It's probably unwise to agree, but Francis is too exhausted to practice his usual caution. "I think I could happily sleep on broken glass at the moment," he says.

Alasdair's answering laughter shocks him. He's never heard it before, and had imagined that it would be somewhat akin to a donkey's bray, but it's lighter and far richer in tone. "Well, my mattress _is_ ancient, so I can't promise you that it'll be much of an improvement, but my bedroom's the only one on the ground floor and you don't look fit to be climbing any more stairs right now. Are you going to be all right to walk?"

"Of course," Francis says, but he only manages to take two tentative steps away from the fridge's steadfast support before his legs start to tremble and threaten to give way beneath him.

"Grandfather always warned me you were a liar." Alasdair flashes him a small, weak grin, but then swallows it down hard. "I, um…" He shuffles his feet again, and, very diffidently, presents his crooked arm to Francis. "You can lean on me."

Only yesterday, Francis would have spurned his aid, but then yesterday's Francis hadn't apparently had his legs transplanted with those of a newborn deer. He curls his hand around Alasdair's arm, and Alasdair lets out a long, wavering breath in response. If that sigh had been made in an attempt at relaxation, it had failed, as his muscles are still taut and tightly bunched. He's clearly not as unfazed by their close proximity as the nonchalant and breezy tone of his voice would suggest, and Francis can hardly fault him for that. After all, he is still in possession of his utility belt, and thus his pouch filled with poisoned-tipped darts, which he has used on Alasdair more than once in the past.

The thought serves as a timely reminder that Alasdair has plenty of reasons beyond currying his grandfather's favour to wish him harm, and even with his darts so close at hand, Francis likely wouldn't be able to reach them in time if Alasdair did take it into his head to pick him up and carry him off to feed to the piranhas. In his current condition, all he can do is hope that Alasdair was telling the truth and that their nascent truce will hold.

Thankfully, Alasdair half-leads, half-drags Francis to the left rather than the right when they leave the kitchen, heading away from the room where grand-père Kirkland houses the more dangerous animals in his extensive collection, and his own room turns out to be only a few, stumbling metres away.

He hesitates before opening the door, and then again before ushering Francis inside.

"I'm sorry about the mess," he says, forging on ahead to clear a path through the piles of discarded clothes littering the floor with the side of his foot. "I never get any visitors, so I don't… I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Francis assures him. "I've slept in far worse places."

Alasdair's room will at least be dry, unlike the ditch outside Francis' safe house, though it's hard to say which of the two would have the more pungent aroma. The air is stale and fusty, but then the one small window does appear to have been painted shut.

The rest of the manor is decorated expensively and – loath as Francis is to admit it – with exquisite taste, but here the furnishings are cheap and sparse, comprising only a rickety desk, wardrobe, over-stuffed bookcase and the unmade bed. The curtains that Alasdair hurries to draw closed are thin and do little to block out what remains of the day's light.

He loiters by the window afterwards, looking nervous and ill at ease once more. "Do you need anything else?" he asks. "A glass of water? I can fetch you one. Or pyjamas? I could—"

"It's fine," Francis reiterates. The mattress' ageing springs groan obstreperously as he sits down on the edge of the bed and slips off his shoes. "If you can just refrain from smothering me with a pillow in my sleep, then everything will be perfect."

"You're giving me too much credit, Francis," Alasdair says. "I'm not that subtle. If I did want you dead, I'd probably just shoot you."

"Is that supposed to be comforting?"

Alasdair shrugs, and then offers the parting shot of, "Sweet dreams," before he turns and leaves the room.

Hateful man.

Francis lies down warily, but despite the bedsheets rumpled appearance, they are fresh and clean, smelling of nothing more than a faint hint of fabric conditioner, and the mattress is not nearly as lumpen as Alasdair had insinuated.

He closes his eyes, and between one breath and the next, falls asleep.  
-

* * *

-  
Francis awakes with a start to a voice shouting his name and a dazzlingly bright light shining down on him from above.

For a terrifying, disoriented moment, he thinks that the Guild must have finally tracked him down and unearthed his safe house, but as full consciousness sluggishly returns, he recognises the voice as Alasdair's. It's equally disorienting to discover that that's a relief.

"Jesus, you sleep like the dead," Alasdair says, his voice low and warm with good humour. "I've been trying to wake you for at least five minutes. I was just about to give up and go fetch a bucket of water to pour over your head."

"That might have been for the best," Francis says. Now that he's somewhat rejuvenated and otherwise refreshed, he's horribly aware of the mud which has dried in clumped splatters across his skin and that his own scent is distinctly less fragrant than that of the sheets wrapped around his body. "I'm long overdue for a shower."

"No time for one, I'm afraid," Alasdair says. "We need you in the dining room, ASAP. Here" – he drops the bundle he's holding at the end of the bed – "I've brought you some clothes to change into, seeing as though your… your catsuit's all ripped up. They're mine, so they won't fit you very well, but Arthur's being a dick and refused to lend you any."

Francis looks at Alasdair expectantly, but Alasdair only gives him a blank stare in return and seems disinclined to move, which is surprising. Whilst Francis may be comfortable stripping in front of just about anyone – up to and including his own Arch – he had always got the impression that Alasdair was very prudish about such things. He stays buttoned up in a long-sleeved shirt and trousers whatever the weather, and the one time Francis had experimentally bared a little skin in an effort to distract him during one of his earliest escape attempts from the manor, he'd turned his head aside so swiftly and violently that it'd been a wonder that his neck didn't snap from the resultant g-force.

Clearly, he doesn't trust Francis to be alone in his room whilst he's not comatose, even if that means he has to subject himself to the sight of his naked body.

Francis pushes himself up into a sitting position, and begins unzipping his catsuit.

"Shit," Alasdair stutters out, his face flushing fire engine red. "I didn't think… Fuck, I'm sorry. I'll… I'll go and wait outside for you."

He scuttles away with alacrity, leaving Francis free to prove that his fears weren't unfounded. He wanders around the cramped room as he disrobes, peering inside Alasdair's wardrobe (dull: all the clothes therein are either drab, shabby, or both), poking through his bookshelves (boring: mostly titles Francis has read before), and finally inspecting the collection of small rocks arranged on the windowsill (inexplicable: not one of them is an eye-catching colour or shape).

All possible avenues of investigation now exhausted, with nothing incriminating or even of interest to show for it, Francis reluctantly dresses in the clothes Alasdair had provided. The jumper is thick, prickly, and hangs almost to his knees, and the trousers are so loose that they sag low on his hips even with the belt fastened on its last hole.

He doubtless looks like a particularly unkempt scarecrow, but the Kirklands all dress like prematurely old men and Alfred voluntarily goes out into the world wearing an American flag-inspired spandex suit, so none of them are in any position to pass judgement.

He puts his shoes back on, and then goes out into the hallway to join Alasdair, who scarcely even glances at him before turning on his heel and heading off in the direction of the dining room.

"So, why do you need me so urgently?" Francis asks, breaking into a jog to catch up with him.

"Dylan's just had a call from Lovino," Alasdair says. "He's found his grandfather."


	12. Chapter 12

Whilst his brothers and Alfred are distracted by Francis' melodramatics, Arthur takes the opportunity to cast off his robe and chuck it in the bin, pushing it down until it's buried deep beneath rotting vegetable peelings and sodden teabags, where, hopefully, it will be ruined beyond any chance of salvage even after the white heat of his embarrassment over owning it has cooled.

He leaves the kitchen the by way of the pantry, grabbing a handful of sea salt from the small jar the cook uses as he passes through. They have vast pots full of the stuff stored in the laboratory, but Grandfather monitors their contents closely and would demand a full accounting if they were even a few grains lighter upon his return from London. Arthur has very little practice in lying to him, and would like to avoid the necessity of it wherever possible.

When he reaches the conservatory, Ten is sitting stiffly propped up in a wicker chair situated to take full advantage of the few weak, watery shafts of sunlight which have managed to trickle through the thick bank of dark clouds overhead, and fortuitously still asleep. Not that Michael is likely to have noticed, either way, given that he has his nose buried deep in his book yet again.

Arthur crouches down next to him, and hisses, "You're supposed to be watching him."

"No need; I'm _listening_. I think I'd notice if he stopped snoring," Michael says at his normal volume. "And why are you whispering? You know he's practically deaf. He won't hear us."

"No need to push our luck, is there?" Arthur says, snatching the book from Michael's hands and setting it aside against his objections. "Come on, you can make yourself useful and help me with a spell."

Michael groans in a thoroughly sullen and put-upon manner, as though Arthur has just insisted he join him on a ten-mile hike or in cleaning the manor from top to bottom. "Why? You know I'm shite at magic."

"Only because you don't practice enough," Arthur says, but without any real heat behind the words. He's repeated them so often over the years that the admonishment has become rote, and Michael pays him so little heed by now that he might as well have never spoken it at all.

"What do you need me to do, then?" Michael asks, getting very slowly and unenthusiastically to his feet.

"Just hold a stone for me; do you think you can manage that?"

Michael rolls his eyes so hard that Arthur wouldn't be surprised to discover he's strained them, but nonetheless compliantly holds out a hand. Arthur takes out the piece of quartz he keeps in the inside pocket of his jacket, and drops it onto his brother's waiting palm.

"You should really have one of these yourself," he says. "Quartz is useful in so many spells, and it's best to be prepared."

"Right." Michael's bland tone of voice and blank expression suggest that he has filed this valuable nugget of information away in the part of his brain marked 'Ignore', just as he always does.

It's baffling how little interest he takes in the art that is his birthright, but he can at least be counted on to play magician's assistant with passable skill when pressed. He chants along with the requisite incantation and dangles the quartz over Ten's head just as Arthur directs him to, even though he looks like he'd much rather be repeatedly hitting himself over the head with a hammer than joining in throughout.

"There," Arthur says, scattering salt over the slumbering Ten to seal the magic, "he should stay asleep until we reverse the spell now."

"He's going to be okay, isn't he?" Michael asks, peering fretfully down at Ten's wrinkled face. "It's not going to hurt him?"

"Of course not," Arthur says. "I've just put him into a sort of… suspended animation."

"Why?"

It only occurs to Arthur with the question that Michael hasn't been privy to their recent discussions with Francis, and thus Arthur's actions towards Ten must instead look to be nothing more than malice. It's a wonder Michael didn't raise more of a protest against being roped into complicity with them.

"We just want to keep him out of our hair for a while," Arthur says, his voice dropping low once more. "We're going to be working with Francis to help him find out what Grandfather did to his mum. And we're going to make Grandfather pay for it, if we can."

Michael greets this news with a smile. He's has always been petrified of Grandfather; even when he was a baby, used to squall, and sob, and wave his tiny fists whenever Grandfather so much as looked in his direction. Grandfather seemingly took this as a personal affront, and gave up on Michael before he even started walking. He feeds, waters and educates him, but otherwise seems content to forget he exists unless he strays far enough from the party line to deserve punishment. There's absolutely no love lost between then.

"Fair enough," Michael says, shrugging nonchalantly. "Do you need me for anything else?"

When Arthur shakes his head, Michael returns immediately to his book, but Arthur finds himself at a loss as to what _he_ should do next. He's already searched near every inch of the manor and grounds, scoured Grandfather's public records, questioned the henchmen as closely as he dared, and never found a single clue as to Mme Bonnefoy's whereabouts. The book Francis stole is the only fresh lead that has come to light for years, and without access to it, there's nothing more he can do to further their cause.

As he has no desire to join Alasdair and Dylan in fussing over Francis, he can think of no better use of his time than resuming his normal duties in the library until the thief is compos mentis again.

Although he sets off from the conservatory with that aim in mind, he's soon swayed from his course by Alfred, whom he spots creeping out of the games room, wearing a distinctly furtive expression.

"I hope you're not looking for something else to steal," Arthur calls out, hurrying forward to intercept him.

"What? No!" Alfred's voice crackles with offended pride, and he draws himself up straight and tall, shoulders squared and fists planted on his hips. Arthur recognises the pose as one the League recommends, meant to reassure onlookers that the superhero is Right and Good. Alfred is lacking only a cape and convenient breeze to make the display picture perfect. "I'm looking for something of mine, actually. I left my clothes and things here when I changed into my costume—"

"To try and steal from us," Arthur finishes for him, levelling a censorious glare at Alfred that Alfred completely disregards. "Well, I can't let you keep poking around here on your own." There are far too many powerful artefacts lying around the place for Arthur to feel comfortable with the idea, especially since Alfred has already proven himself to have sticky fingers. "I'll take you wherever you need to go. Where did you leave your _things_?"

"In a bathroom," Alfred tells him unhelpfully.

"Right, we have eight of those, not including the en-suites," Arthur says. "Do you remember anything about it in particular? Could you describe it to me?"

"It had white tiles, and…" Alfred screws his eyes closed. Arthur can practically hear the cogs of his mind grinding together. "And all the usual bathroom stuff: shower, sink, toilet. I think they were white, too."

Which describes every damn bathroom in the manor. "Fantastic," Arthur says through a thin, feigned smile. "Come on" – he beckons for Alfred to follow him – "we'll start on this floor and work our way up."  
-

* * *

-  
Alfred has dug through all eight bathrooms without success – leaving a trail of carelessly cast aside towels, spare toilet rolls, and dressing gowns in his wake that Arthur will doubtless have to tidy away at some point, as his brothers will likely pretend to not see the mess and just step around it until he does – which leaves only the en-suites, most of which are beyond reach for the moment, locked down thanks to Grandfather's paranoia.

Arthur can't imagine what he had feared they might do in his absence if they were allowed access to the guest bedrooms. He and his brothers are hardly the sorts to throw wild parties, and they couldn't cobble together enough friends between the four of them to fill even half of the rooms.

Whatever his reasoning, Arthur's own en-suite is the only one still open, and he asks Alfred to step inside his room with what he hopes sounds to be easy informality, as though the invitation is a commonplace one that he frequently extends.

Truthfully, though, it feels strange in his mouth and even stranger to have Alfred accept and see him step inside. The last person he'd entertained here had been Gabriella, and she hasn't visited him for, Christ, almost five years now.

Alfred's behaviour only serves to deepen his unease. He pokes his nose into every nook and cranny of the room, gawps openly at the furniture and artwork, and even goes so far as to plonk his arse down on the end of Arthur's bed without so much as a by-your-leave, and then pass judgement on how firm the mattress is.

"It looks like a hotel room," is his final assessment.

Arthur isn't sure whether it's meant as a compliment or an insult. It could very well be either: the room's opulently-appointed enough that it wouldn't look out of place at the Ritz, but it's just as anonymous, too.

He's never felt secure enough to put any of his personal belongings out on display or truly make the space his own. The room used to be Alasdair's, back when they were all in school and _he_ was Grandfather's favourite, the golden child, because he was tall, handsome and popular. Because he was captain of the rugby team and a prefect. Because he got straight A stars in his GCSEs, straight As in his A-levels, and was accepted into Oxford.

Grandfather was proud enough to burst about that, and nearly wet himself in joy when Alasdair graduated with a first four years later and he could boast about it to his cronies.

But then Alasdair had announced that he wanted to stay on to do a PhD, and thereafter spend the rest of his life squinting at rock samples through a microscope.

That hadn't been any part of Grandfather's plans for him. He was likely supposed return home in triumph, take up his proper place at Grandfather's right hand, but instead Alasdair had tried to run.

He wasn't quite quick enough or cautious enough to evade the henchmen Grandfather had posted to Oxford to watch over him, though, and they'd dragged him back to Chester, thrown him at Grandfather's feet, and Grandfather had threatened him with something that Alasdair has never divulged, even all these years later.

Whatever it was, it was dire enough that Alasdair's never attempted to escape again, even after he was demoted to little better than a henchman, trudging around the grounds hour after hour, rain or shine, and consigned to the poky room downstairs with its leaky radiator and cast-off furniture.

Dylan was the next occupant of the second-best bedroom, and his relocation there was meant as an insult, to underline Alasdair's disgrace, because Dylan had always been a disappointment – Grandfather never made a secret of that – and thus was the least deserving of the honour.

When Alasdair steadfastly refused to rise to Grandfather's bait, or scrabble to regain his approval, Dylan was summarily cast out, and the room stood empty for six months before Grandfather decided that Arthur was worthy of it.

Whilst Arthur had tried his best to live up to Grandfather's expectations, the knowledge that this privilege was a tenuous one had always niggled at the back of his mind, and he'd never allowed himself to grow complacent in his position. A good thing, too, because even if they don't manage to bring down Grandfather, he's liable to lose it any day now. He is, after all, not ruthless enough to do what Grandfather does, he doesn't have the _balls_ , as Grandfather has delighted in reminding him again, and again, and a-fucking-gain.

"I suppose it does," is as much as he's comfortable sharing with Alfred, however. "The bathroom's through that door." He waves a hand towards it. "Be my guest."

He takes Alfred's spot on the bed when he vacates it, and flicks idly through a book until he returns, a pile of clothing clutched in his arms, his face flushed and beaming in pleasure at his success.

"Everything's still here," he says. "My phone, my wallet—"

"Your horrendous suit," Arthur says vindictively in return for Alfred's unintentional insult. Even if he _had_ stumbled across Alfred's belongings, he'd never have stooped to petty thievery, and he resents the implication that he might. "You stood out like a sore thumb at the party, you know."

Alfred just laughs. "It's older than I am, and really, really scratchy, but I wanted to look the part. A rookie reporter, like Clark Kent was when he started out as a superhero."

"Like Clark Kent," Arthur echoes wonderingly. "You shouldn't just copy what you see in comic books. It doesn't work the same way in real life."

"I fooled you, though, didn't I? You didn't guess I was there undercover."

"I knew _something_ was off about you," Arthur says. "I just didn't guess that you were a superhero until I saw you in your costume, still wearing your _fucking glasses_."

"See, it did work," Alfred says happily, though his smile is quick to fade when he looks down at his suit, and soon replaced by a frown.

"Look, if you want to change out of your costume," Arthur says, guessing at the source of his disgruntlement, "I'm sure I can lend you something better to wear than _that_."

Alfred accepts his offer with thanks, and Arthur moves to his chest of drawers in search of something suitable. There isn't much – his collection of casual clothing is paltry – but he eventually picks out a black T-shirt and pair of joggers, both worn thin and soft by age and repeated washing, which look as though they're something approximating Alfred's size. They're likely to be too tight, even so, but Arthur certainly won't complain about that if Alfred doesn't.

He turns around to hand them to Alfred, his mouth forming some pointless apology or meaningless platitude which dies on his lips unspoken, because Alfred has already started undressing, the top of his costume pushed down low on his hips, and there's far too much of his smooth, golden skin on display for rational thought to survive.

His stomach churns as the warm curl of his arousal meets the slithering chill of a far older, more persistent fear.

(There aren't any cameras here anymore. There haven't been for years, and he checks for new ones every day, just in case. Grandfather would be furious if he could see him now, a half-naked man in his room. He'd be apoplectic. He'd bring the whole fucking house down around their ears.)

He shouldn't be staring, but Alfred catches his eye before he can look away, and his lips curl just a little, knowingly, and Arthur gets the impression that he really doesn't mind.

So, he keeps on looking whilst Alfred kicks off his boots and strips off the rest of his costume. Whilst he stands there, wearing nothing but the very briefest of briefs and a soft, indulgent expression.

"Hey," he says, his voice low and a little husky. "Are you—"

He's interrupted by a loud and very determined hammering on the bedroom door. Arthur springs to block it instantly, leaning all of his weight against it in the hopes of keeping it closed even in the event of a determined attempt at incursion.

"What do you want?" he snaps.

"Are you all right?" Dylan asks, deep concern evident in his tone even with several inches of muffling wood between them. The door handle rattles. "You sound a bit winded."

"I'm fine," Arthur says. "Nothing to worry about."

"Okay," Dylan says, though he doesn't sound particularly convinced. "Anyway, I just came to let you know I've made a pot of tea and I'm going to cut some cake to go with it. Any preferences?"

Before Arthur has chance to reply that he couldn't care less about either cake _or_ tea, Alfred calls out, "What kind have you got?"

Dylan is clearly thrown by Alfred's presence and there's a lengthy pause before he calls back, "Chocolate, carrot, and a Victoria sponge."

Alfred's powers must include super-speed, because he appears at Arthur's shoulder in a trice, already dressed in his loaned T-shirt and joggers. If they had been on the verge of sharing some kind of _moment_ , its time has passed, ruined by the prospect of cake.

Arthur sighs, stepping aside to allow Alfred to leave the room as he so obviously wants to, and he flings open the door and steps over the threshold with dispiriting haste, informing Dylan that, "All three sounds good," as he does so.

"Of course," Dylan agrees readily, ever-accommodating. "If you like. We're in the dining room; fourth door on your right on the ground floor."

Alfred bounds eagerly ahead, but Dylan keeps a more measured pace with Arthur. Judging by the questioning glances he keeps shooting Arthur's way, he's burning with curiosity about what might have been occurring behind that closed door to leave him so breathless, but Arthur refuses to indulge him with an answer.

Eventually, he gives up and says, "Francis is taking a nap, and Aly thinks we should leave to it for at least a couple of hours. I know you'll probably want to make a start on that book before then, but _please_ don't tell Aly that. You'll only piss him off and start a fight. He's really worried about him."

Arthur scowls. They have so little time as it is before Grandfather's return that even such a short delay could prove costly. "But—"

"Don't, Art," Dylan says, as firmly as he is capable of. "We've got company; let's at least _try_ to make a good impression."  
-

* * *

-  
Taking tea is an excruciating affair, just as Arthur had feared it might be.

Alasdair is a morose, unresponsive lump at the head of the table, his thoughts evidently so full of Francis that he hasn't got room in his head for anybody else, and Arthur can't think, in the moment, of anything to say to Alfred that he would want his brothers to overhear.

Dylan flits about, doling out tea and cake, asking whether anyone would like more of this or that; desperately killing time in an effort to put off the moment where he has to sit down himself and share in the uneasy silence that has settled over the table.

When he has no choice but to do so, he flushes, and fidgets, and manages all of two minutes before he opens his mouth and unleashes the torrent of babbling crap that always spews forth when he's nervous and Grandfather isn't around to upbraid him for the habit.

He chatters about tea and cakes, brewing and baking, on and mindlessly on for so long that Alfred looks to be stunned by it, presumably amazed that it's possible for someone to talk so much and say so very little.

Arthur leans in towards him and says in an undertone, "He can do this for _hours_. Just watch; he barely even needs to take a breath. If I didn't know better, I'd think he had an actual superpower."

Thankfully, they're spared not more than ten minutes later when Dylan's phone starts ringing. His ears pink when he looks at the screen, so Arthur guesses who his caller is even before he announces. "It's Lovino. I'll just… Please excuse me, everyone. I'll, um… I'll take this outside."

After he's hurried away, Alfred shuffles around in his seat and bends his mouth close to Arthur's ear. "I counted five breaths."

Arthur shivers involuntarily. "That many?" he says. "He must be slipping."

Alfred chuckles, and seems poised to say more, but Dylan's sudden, stumbling return to the dining room distracts both him and Arthur.

Dylan's as white as a sheet, and trembling so violently that his phone slips from his fingers and drops, unheeded, to the floor.

"Lovino's henchmen have found what happened to the Shrike," he says. "There's been a terrible accident, and he's… He and his driver are both dead."


	13. Chapter 13

The Guild Dylan grew up with had appeared, from the outside, to be staid, stuffy, and hidebound by a panoply of rules that tried to bring a semblance of order to something that should, by its very nature, be chaotic and dreadful. The men and women Grandfather surrounded himself with were cut from much the same cloth as him: the ageing scions of families who had been supervillains for generations and talked a good talk about schemes and heists over port and cigars in their drawing rooms and clubhouses, but delegated most of the dirty, tedious work of actually committing crimes to their minions and henchmen.

They made supervillainy sound like an unpleasant chore that had to be endured only so they could maintain their Guild membership, just like their father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather would have wanted.

(An 'adolescent power fantasy' and 'narcissistic posturing', Dylan's own father had called it in a low, hushed voice, as he and mum huddled together in a darkened corner of their private living room where they'd thought they wouldn't be overheard.

"It's dangerous," he'd said. " _He's_ dangerous. I know you don't want to see it, Liz, but the man's a monster. We need to get out of this house, this job, this _life_ , and run as far away from him as we can. For the kids' sake. For _our_ sake.")

Francis and his mother were different. They took joy in their work, and the tales they told about it were thrilling, replete with subterfuge, seductions, and daring escapes made in eye-wateringly expensive sports cars. They dressed as though they expected that they might, at any moment, be whisked away to attend a high-society party, their hair was always shampoo-advert perfect, and even at seventeen, Francis had had all the poise and self-assurance of a much older man.

The gangling and acne-ridden awkwardness of adolescence seemed to have passed him by outright, and he'd moved with fluid elegance, spoken with the forthright confidence of someone who believed his every word was a precious gift he was bestowing upon anyone within earshot. To Dylan, upon whom puberty had unleashed its full arsenal of hormonal horrors, he had been so terrifying as to be unapproachable.

Dylan was so anxious of saying something that could be construed as gauche, small-minded or childish that, over the course of seven years, he doubts he said more than twenty words to Francis, the vast majority of which were either 'Hello' or 'Goodbye'.

Even now, after Francis has been brought so desperate and so low that he's willing to socialise whilst wearing an ancient, moth-eaten Fair Isle jumper that is baggy even on Alasdair, and, to be frank, both looks and smells as though he's just finished a particularly gruelling day's work as a farmhand, Dylan can't quite summon up the courage to try and start an actual conversation with him.  
But as he can hardly ignore him entirely, given that they're seated next to one another at the table, he takes refuge, once again, in hospitality.

"Would you like another cup of tea?" he asks.

"I think three's my limit," Francis says, swiftly placing his hand over the top of his mug when Dylan picks up the teapot and tilts it towards him interrogatively. "I don't suppose you have any coffee, do you?"

"Well, I think we might have a jar of instant, or," Dylan adds with some reluctance, when Francis looks as though he might vomit at the mere mention of that, "Grandfather does have one of those pod machine things." It's an intimidating black and chrome behemoth of a thing with a frighteningly large array of buttons of esoteric purpose that Dylan has never dared attempt to use before, but if he can ferret out the instruction booklet it came with, he hopes he might be able to produce something approaching potable from it, given enough time. Grandfather is even less technologically adept than him, and manages to operate it every day without it exploding in his face, so it seems eminently possible. "I could make you a cup."

"Thank you," Francis says, his wan face brightening considerably at the prospect. "And once I've drunk that, hopefully I'll be awake enough to drive back to my safe house and pick up that copy of the book I promised you."

"You're in no condition to drive, Francis," Alasdair puts in from the other side of the table, where Dylan had thought him to be thoroughly absorbed with dunking biscuits into his own tea and not paying them the slightest bit of attention. "You'd likely fall asleep behind the wheel. _I'll_ drive you."

"What keeps a house safe is that no-one knows where it is," Francis says. "It would defeat the object if I had to give you directions."

"He made me wear a blindfold when we went there," Alfred pipes up.

"And that would hardly be a good solution to what you're proposing, would it?" Francis raises an eyebrow at Alasdair archly. "I'll be fine, Alasdair."

"I still think you'd be better off waiting until you've had a good night's sleep."

"We've only got four days before Grandfather gets back," Arthur says. "We can't afford that sort of delay."

"Precisely," Francis says, his gaze remaining rigidly fixed upon Alasdair even whilst he inclines his head towards Arthur to acknowledge his contribution. "And I think what's happened to the Shrike has made our work here even more urgent, don't you?"

Alasdair frowns, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. "All we know is that he died. It could have been a heart attack or something."

"Look, I understand you wanting to defend your grandfather, but—"

"I am not _defending_ him. I wouldn't put anything past the old bastard, even killing one of his best mates, but we don't have enough information yet to—"

"I can't believe it's merely a coincidence, not when he went missing from this house! In my research, I've come across so many accounts of dead and missing people connected to the Guild who were last seen in your grandfather's company that…"

Dylan gets to his feet, and begins walking away from the table. It's doubtless horrifically impolite, but he's heard about Francis' research three times now, the last three times he and Alasdair have embarked on some slight variation of this exact same fruitless discussion, and it seems unlikely that this fourth iteration will prove any more edifying.

"I'll go get that coffee," he says when he reaches the doorway, by way of an excuse for his deplorable behaviour, and mostly just to salve his own conscience, as his departure from his seat seems to have gone unheeded, anyway. Alasdair and Francis are too embroiled in their argument to have noticed, and Alfred and Arthur have their heads bent together, apparently rapt in their own conversation. "And see about making something for dinner."  
-

* * *

-  
The drawer in the kitchen where the documentation for the appliances is kept is bulging at its seams, and it takes Dylan a good ten minutes to dig down through the strata of misfiled takeaway menus and booklets for microwaves and toasters he remembers Grandfather owning in the nineties to the very bottom, where he finally unearths the instructions for the coffee machine.

He reads them through twice before switching it on. It makes a high-pitched whirring sound, and its overabundant buttons flash in a complex but seemingly random fashion. He consults the notes again, but finds no explanation for either the noise or the lights.

"I can't have broken it already," he reassures himself as he gingerly, and very carefully, inserts one of the little plastic pods into the drawer at the top of the machine. Its display flickers contemplatively, but nothing else happens.

In desperation, Dylan jabs at a few likely looking buttons, but the machine remains smugly inert.

"Oh, for fuck's sake…" he mutters under his breath, opening the booklet at page one yet again.

Distantly, he can hear the doorbell ring, but he ignores it, not wanting to be distracted from his study of the illustrations which purport to explain what the arcane symbols marked on the machine's buttons represent.

When it rings for a second time, he closes the booklet partway, thumb marking his place, and listens out for the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Only silence greets the third ring, and the fourth, and on the fifth, Dylan hurls the booklet down onto the nearest countertop and announces to the empty room, "I guess I'll get that, then."

He expects there will be a delivery person on the other side of the front door when he wrenches it open, or perhaps one of Grandfather's colleagues whom he hadn't seen fit to inform of his business trip, but instead finds Lovino standing slouched on the step.

He looks completely unlike himself, dressed in a tatty, shapeless brown coat and faded jeans, and his hair is spilling over his brow instead of being immaculately coiffed and slicked back as it normally is. He's pale, eyes bruised black with tiredness, and swaying, ever so slightly, on his feet.

"Can I come in?" he eventually has to ask, because Dylan's shock at seeing him there has robbed him of both his wits and good manners.

"Of course," Dylan says, hurriedly moving away from the doorway to allow Lovino to pass by.

When he turns back away from the door again after shutting and relocking it, Lovino throws himself against him, hard, arms wrapping tight around his waist, his damp cheek pressed against the side of Dylan's neck.

No-one has come to Dylan looking for comfort for a long time – not since Michael turned ten and decided he was too old to for hugs – and he's not sure what to do now. Tentatively, he rests one hand, palm flat, against the small of Lovino's back, the other, he cups around the back of Lovino's head. Free of its usual product, it feels soft and silky, flowing between Dylan's fingers like water.

Lovino clings on to him for a long moment, his body shaking and shuddering from the force of the sobs Dylan can hear him swallowing back, but then he steps back from Dylan just as suddenly as he had grabbed hold of him. His eyes are red-rimmed and watery, and the look he settles on Dylan seems decidedly expectant.

Dylan has no idea how to respond to that, either. 'I'm sorry,' feels wholly inadequate; 'It'll be okay,' patently untrue.

"I wasn't expecting you," is what he finds himself saying, when his brain fails to provide any useful input on the matter.

Lovino stares at him, mouth agape, clearly as thrown by the inanity of the comment as Dylan himself.

Adding, "I thought you'd have gone down to London with Feliciano to be with your parents," makes it sound a little better to Dylan's ears, at least. A little less like an accusation.

"I needed to stay here. There are arrangements…" Lovino screws his eyes closed. Tears glisten, trapped in his lower lashes. "I'm sorry, I should have let you know I was coming," he says, uncharacteristically contrite. "You were probably in the middle of something."

"Not really," Dylan says. "I was just about to make a start on cooking dinner, but I—"

"I can help you with that," Lovino says.

"You don't have to," Dylan insists. "It can wait."

"I want to." Lovino nods once, decisive.

Dylan wants to remonstrate further – he's been a poor enough host as it is already, and putting a guest to work would only compound his deficiencies on that score – but now is hardly the time to be picking an argument. He shrugs and lets it slide.

The coffee machine is still pulsating in an ominous fashion when they arrive at the kitchen. Lovino frowns at it in passing, and then doubles back to shove a cup beneath the dispenser. Placated, the machine begins to hum industriously.

"What are you planning on making," he asks Dylan.

"Lasagne," Dylan says as he retreats to the pantry to gather his ingredients. "It's Alasdair's favourite, and he'd only moan if I didn't."

When he returns, Lovino recoils as though zapped by an electric shock when he sees the box he's carrying. "You're not going to use _that_ , are you?" his voice dripping with distaste.

"Well, yes?" Dylan says. "I don't know how to cook it any other way."

Grandfather's always employed a cook, so he's never much impetus to learn how to prepare meals from scratch. The paltry five dishes he can cobble together with something approaching competency, he taught himself by following the instructions on the back of the packets and jars of sauce and the like that the cook keeps in stock to tide them over on those rare occasions, like this one, when neither he nor Grandfather are around to feed them.

"I wouldn't call that cooking. And this" – Lovino plucks the lasagne kit from Dylan's hands and casts it aside – "barely qualifies as food. I'll show you how to make it properly."

After demonstrating that he can wield a knife with enough skill that he isn't likely to inflict unintentional injury on either of them, Dylan is tasked with chopping the carrot, onion and celery, whilst Lovino busies himself with preparing the pasta dough, having turned his nose up at the idea of using even the dried sheets that came in Dylan's kit.

Dylan has watched the cook making pasta before, and though it did seem to be quite a labour-intensive process, he can't remember it requiring kneading with quite so much vigour as Lovino employs. His expression is very peaceful as he works, though, which suggests he's finding it quite cathartic, so Dylan lets it go unquestioned, and concentrates on reducing the vegetables into the tiny, regularly-sized cubes that Lovino had insisted were imperative if he didn't want to risk ruining the whole dish.

He's so engrossed in the task that he forgets that he isn't alone, and startles when Lovino starts to speak.

"The henchmen found Grandad a couple of miles from here," he says, the words directed towards the dough rather than Dylan. "His car had come off the road, and crashed into a tree."

"So, it was an accident, then?" Dylan asks. Selfishly, he feels a strange sort of relief at the news.

"No," Lovino says abruptly, driving a clenched fist down into the centre of the dough. "He was burnt to a fucking crisp. Him and his driver, but the inside of the car was practically pristine."

"Have you been to the police?"

Lovino snorts derisively. "Of course not. What would they do? This is Guild business, Dyl. I'm sure your grandfather had something to do with do with it. They've been arguing all the time lately about some plan of your grandfather's. I don't know any of the details, but…" He pauses, looks at Dylan sidelong, and then takes a long, slow breath in, as though readying himself to dive into deep water. "Francis came to see me yesterday, brought me a book to translate that he thought might be connected somehow to his mother's disappearance. I think it could have something to do with Grandad's, too, but I can't make any sense of it. I think it's a magical text, so I've brought a copy for you to take a look at."

"You did?" Dylan says. "Well, that'll save Francis a trip, at least. Alasdair will be delighted."

Lovino gapes at him. "What?"

"Francis is here, Lovi," Dylan says. "He's told us all about that book. He doesn't trust us with the original quite yet, but he was going to fetch a copy from his safe house so we could take a look at it together."

"You're working with him now?" Lovino sounds incredulous. "I thought you all hated him."

"Grandfather probably does, and Arthur's never been particularly fond of him, but Alasdair" – would be horrified if Dylan so much as intimated that his feelings towards Francis were anything other than distantly platonic – "has always liked him. And I have, too." Have always been in quiet awe of him, more like, though Lovino doesn't need to know that. "We know as well as he does – as _you_ do – that Grandfather's up to something, and we want to help put a stop to it."

"I was expecting this to be a lot more difficult." Lovino laughs shakily. "I thought I was going to have to bribe you or something."

"You still can, if you like," Dylan says.

"Yeah?" The quirk of Lovino's mouth is likely meant to be suggestive, but he can't sustain it for long. His entire face seems to sag afterwards, and he looks even more exhausted; worn down to the bone. "What with?"

"Well," Dylan draws the word out along with his smile, "lasagne would be a good start, I think."


	14. Chapter 14

By all reports, Alasdair and Lovino had coexisted perfectly well as babies and young toddlers, burbling happy nonsense to each other and peaceably sharing their sweets and toys, surprising their parents, who would gather to coo about how 'sweet' and 'kind' they both were and praise them to high heaven for their behaviour.

Alasdair has no recollection of any of that, no more than he can remember the day it all changed. His mum had been watching them but, she'd told Alasdair years later, looked away for only a moment, and in that moment _something_ happened. Something that blacked Lovino's eye and made him scream so loudly and for so long that he nearly passed out.

Through his sobs and tears and general wailing, he managed to scrape together just enough breath and coherent thought to blame Alasdair for everything. Mum had scolded Alasdair – _that_ , he remembers vividly – and then poured all her sympathy onto Lovino, coddled him and cuddled him, and when that didn't work, plied him with his own bodyweight in chocolate until he finally shut up

She unwittingly created a monster. From then on, whenever Lovino didn't get to play with the best toy, or he lost at a game, or he simply wasn't getting the attention he thought he deserved, the waterworks would start, and because Alasdair was taller, stronger, and a whole three months older, it would inevitably be his fault somehow, even if he wasn't in the same fucking room at the time.

It was bad enough when they were little kids and they only had to suffer one another's company during family parties and the odd, optimistically-named 'play date', but then their parents' shared obsession with league tables and exam results condemned them to attend the same succession of expensive private schools and Alasdair was stuck seeing him every day during term time for the next thirteen years, too.

Whilst Lovino did eventually grow out of being a snivelling tattletale, he didn't grow into someone Alasdair liked a great deal, either. He was a bad-tempered arse, always complaining to anyone who'd listen about some trivial misfortune, inconvenience, or imagined slight, and he was cocky and sneeringly superior about a whole host of things that Alasdair considered utterly unimportant.

Grandfather thought they were important, though. Or, at least, he acted as if he did. Now, Alasdair can recognise it as part and parcel of some weird pissing contest Grandfather and The Shrike engaged in over the accomplishments of their respective grandsons, but as a child he'd resented being pitted against Lovino; compared to him and so often found wanting.

And Grandfather berated him about all these perceived shortcomings at great, disparaging length. What did it matter that Alasdair was captain of the rugby team, if Lovino could run rings around him on the football pitch? And what good was it getting the best marks in every other subject when he couldn't sweep the board, because Lovino always beat him in Art? And why couldn't he put a bit more effort into his appearance? Lovino was so neat, and polite, and impeccably turned out, whereas Alasdair looked like he'd been dragged through series of particularly thorny hedges backwards.

Throughout their childhood and early adolescence, Alasdair had dealt with all these minor provocations by pretending that Lovino didn't exist for the most part. He ignored him at school, at family parties and, later, guild functions, tuning him out by degrees until he receded into nothing more than a mildly irritating note in the background noise of Alasdair's life.

And there Lovino might have remained into adulthood and beyond, had he not committed two unforgivable sins.

The first and most egregious was fooling Dylan into thinking that he's worth liking; the second, getting along far better with Francis than Alasdair could ever manage.

When Francis' mum first started working with the UK Council of Thirteen, their respective guardians had often left the three of them to 'entertain each other' whilst they discussed Guild business. From their first, disastrous meeting, it was abundantly clear that Francis didn't find Alasdair entertaining in the slightest, but he appeared quite taken with Lovino.

They shared a passion for art and fashion, and both had travelled the world from an early age, staying in the very best hotels and dining in the very best restaurants.

Alasdair's taste in art was – Lovino had snootily informed him once – woefully pedestrian, and the only holidays he ever went on were the three weeks he spent in their Scottish holiday home every summer, where life carried on in much the same way as it did at the manor excepting that Alasdair and his brothers spent much more of their time dressed in tweed and flat caps, trudging behind grandfather carrying things whilst he shot at the local wildlife.

He's no gastronomist, either, but he knows what he likes and what he doesn't, and as far as he's concerned, Lovino's lasagne isn't a patch on Dylan's.

It has far more vegetables hidden in its depths for a start, deceptively enrobed by sauce and lurking in and amongst the meat, ready to spring themselves on the unwary. Alasdair spears one of the offending morsels on the tines of his fork and holds it aloft.

"What's this?" he asks Lovino accusingly.

Lovino gives him a withering look. "Celery."

"Dyl's lasagne never has celery in."

"I don't make it properly," Dylan jumps in, sounding thoroughly abashed. "It's much better made from scratch, don't you think?"

"No," Alasdair says, because the point of Dylan's lasagne isn't that it's the height of culinary excellence or anything like, the _point_ is that it's hearty and familiar and, above all, comforting, which he thinks his brothers could all do with a spot of right now, instead of having their – apparently inadequate – palates and skills in the kitchen denigrated. "It's—"

"Well, I think it's delicious!" Francis says brightly, scooping another portion of the lasagne onto his plate with an eagerness that makes Lovino look hatefully self-satisfied.

Alasdair forgoes taking any more for himself out of a sense of brotherly solidarity, but Michael has no such compunctions. He and Alfred split the rest and the last few wilting scraps of salad, guzzling it all down as though they're still desperately hungry, despite it being at least the third helping for each.

After everyone's plates have been scraped clean and Lovino has basked in their compliments on the meal to his satisfaction, he retrieves his laptop from his car to show them the scans of Grandfather's book he had made.

"It's definitely a magical text, just like you thought," Dylan says, peering at the screen over Lovino's shoulder. "I don't know which one, though. Any ideas, Art?"

"I don't recognise it," Arthur says, "but I have seen some that are similar. It's written in cipher, like a lot of the old spellbooks were. We'll need the corresponding code book as well before we can decrypt it. I don't suppose you stole that too, did you, Francis?"

Francis shakes his head. "There was only that one book in your grandfather's desk, even though I had it on good report that there would be three."

"I can't imagine that Grandfather's got rid of them, if he needs them to read the spellbook," Arthur says. "They must be _somewhere_ in the house."

"Or he could have taken them down to London with him for safekeeping rather than leave us alone here with them," Alasdair points out. "You know what he's like. He doesn't trust us any more than his henchmen."

"Even so, we can probably use a spell to translate it," Arthur says. "I don't know any suitable ones offhand, but there's bound to be something in the library. I'd need the original book for that to work, though."

"I'll fetch it for you," Francis says, and though the words are spoken with the sort of conviction that suggests immediate action will be forthcoming, he doesn't stir from his seat.

And no wonder, because he looks exhausted again, whey-faced and slumped down in his seat as though his body is a burden to heavy to bear without his spine bowing under the weight of it.

"Tomorrow," Alasdair says, and much more decisively he had every other time he had made the same suggestion this evening. "It's getting late, and we can make a start on all this tomorrow."

"It's only nine o'clock!" Alfred protests incredulously.

"That's pretty bloody late when you get up at dawn like we do," Alasdair says, gesturing towards himself and then his brothers. "I don't know about anyone else, but _I'm_ knackered."

Dylan and Michael agree readily enough, but Arthur makes a few grumbled complaints before finally acquiescing, perhaps in an attempt to pass himself off as someone who doesn't habitually retire to his bed with a hot milky drink at ten on the dot and thus finds the hour just as ridiculously early as the superhero does.

"Right." Alasdair nods firmly. "That's settled, then. Let's all get to bed."

Circumstances being – dismal and unpleasant – as they are, it naturally falls to Dylan to settle Lovino in for the night once it becomes clear he has no intentions of pissing off back to his own perfectly good home for the foreseeable. Arthur offers to do the same for Alfred with suspicious rapidity, leaving Alasdair to deal with Francis by default.

"You can take my bed again," he says. "I'll sleep on one of the sofas in the den."

He expects Francis to mount some sort of token objection to the idea, if only out of politeness, but he must be too tired to play his part in that particular call and response of social nicety, because he merely smiles gratefully and says, "Thank you. Though I would like to clean up first, if I may. I doubt I'll be very comfortable" – he motions towards his unkempt hair, his expression doleful – "like this."

Privately, Alasdair questions the wisdom of the idea. Though Francis might be a little grubby after his encounter with the enchanted trees in the orchard, and he certainly smells more than a little ripe, it seems unlikely that he'll be able to remain standing long enough to take a shower in his current condition, and if he does pass out, Alasdair would hate to be put in the position of having to go in to rescue him, for a whole host of reasons.

"Of course," he says anyway, because he doubts he'll be able to persuade Francis otherwise easily, and he's too tired himself to risk getting into an argument over it. "I'll show you to the bathroom."

He grabs a clean pair of his own pyjamas from the downstairs airing cupboard on the way, along with a couple of fluffy new towels to replace the threadbare ones that tend to migrate into the dingy little bathroom he normally uses once Grandfather deems them unfit for use elsewhere.

He apologises for the state of the room once they reach it; shows Francis where to find the shower gel and shampoo, and fresh bottles of both if they happen to run out; demonstrates how to open the little window above the sink in case he gets too hot, because it always sticks halfway and needs a good, hard shove in just the right place; and then explains the intricacies of working the shower in painstaking detail, because it's a finicky death-trap piece of outdated shit.

"You can't turn the dial more than a couple of centimetres either side of here," he says, gesturing emphatically towards the worn-out number 5 on the shower's controls, "unless you want to be boiled alive. Oh, and if the water starts spluttering, just smack the pipes a bit. That usually sorts it out."

"Do you want to stay and scrub my back, too?" Francis asks, but there's none of the rumbling throatiness to his voice that there usually is when he says such things.

The archness of his smile confirms that it wasn't a play-act of flirtation, but a teasing admonishment. Alasdair is fussing too much.

Alasdair flushes just as hotly as he would have if it _had_ been the other sort of teasing, stammers out an apology, and then tells Francis, "I'll go sort out my room and leave you to it. Come through whenever you're ready."

He'd need more than the span of a shower, even the most indulgently protracted, to get his bedroom fit for visitors. Francis had likely been too distracted by tiredness to notice the state of it earlier, and probably would be so again now, but there'll be no escaping the observation come morning, and Alasdair is ashamed by the sight of it all over again.

He scoops all the dirty clothes off the floor and stuffs them into his laundry basket until its overflowing, reorganises his bookcase so that the more embarrassingly juvenile volumes in his collection are safely hidden at the back of the topmost shelf, and has just finished remaking the bed when Francis shuffles wearily into the room.

His hair is still damp, drying into loosely coiled ringlets at the ends, which Alasdair thinks suits him far better than his usual pin straight style as the curls lend a balancing softness to the more angular planes of his face.

And he looks more angular than he ever has done before. He's always been slim, but he looks sparse and brittle now, with barely a spare ounce of flesh on his bones. Alasdair's pyjamas are far too big on him, the bottoms of the trouser legs puddling on the floor around his feet, and the sleeves of the shirt covering his hands to the tips of his fingers. The collar gapes wide around his neck, drooping down to reveal the brutally sharp lines of his collar bone.

Alasdair's heart twinges hard, and he turns his head abruptly aside to disguise his instinctive pained grimace.

"Well," he says, eyes doggedly fixed on the wall behind his desk, "the bed's all ready for you. Do you need anything else?"

"No," Francis says, his voice rough and thready. "I should be fine, thank you."

"Okay, then. I'll be in the den if you do need anything; two doors down the hall on the left."

That said, Alasdair should leave. He _knows_ he should, but he can't quite bring himself to go. There's a far too big part of him that wants to wait until Francis is safely tucked up in bed, because he'd liked how Francis had looked there earlier. There was nothing prurient about it – not especially – he'd simply appreciated the way that the worry and fatigue that had been pinching Francis' mouth tight and lying heavy on his brow were smoothed away, and he'd seemed peaceful. Untroubled, and comfortable in a way that Alasdair had never dared to imagine to he could ever be in the manor. In Alasdair's own bedroom.

He's clearly not comfortable now, though, as he makes no move towards the bed. His, "Thank you," is spoken sharply this time, and just as clearly a dismissal.

Alasdair obeys it as quickly as possible, pausing only to grab his sleeping bag from the bottom of his wardrobe before retreating to the den with it.

Arthur has already staked a claim on the longest of the three sofas there, stretched out under a mound of blankets.

"You gave up your bed to Alfred, then," Alasdair says.

"Of course I did," Arthur says, sounding primly offended that that might ever have been in question. "I'd be a pretty poor host if I didn't, wouldn't I?"

"They're not really guests, though, are they? More of a… A taskforce or something. It's not like we'd be having them over for tea and cake if they weren't helping us getting to the bottom of this thing with Grandfather. Two of them are technically still our enemies, after all. By rights, we should have locked them up in the dungeons overnight."

"I will if you will," Arthur says, but only because he knows that Alasdair would never agree to that now.

Point won, and their disagreement settled to his satisfaction, Arthur rolls over onto his other side, presenting his back to Alasdair, a clear sign that he considers their conversation at an end and has no wish to speak further.

Alasdair considers starting it back up out of nothing more than the petty spite that Arthur so often inspires in him when he starts acting so smug and officious, but as soon as he sits down on the second longest sofa, weariness washes over him in a crashing wave.

He collapses onto his back and doesn't even have the energy to get into his sleeping bag, just unzips it and drapes it over himself.

He slips into a doze the instant he closes his eyes but is soon roused again by the creak of the floorboards by the door. The diffident rhythm of the footsteps is immediately familiar.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he hisses. "I thought you'd want to sleep with your…" The word 'boyfriend' catches hard at the back of Alasdair's throat, because he still isn't used to using it in relation to Lovino. Still doesn't care for the unwelcome reminder of his new, odious position in Dylan's life. "With Lovino."

"Oh," Dylan says, soft and surprised. "Well, I… He didn't ask me to stay, and I thought he might appreciate a bit of space. I didn't want to crowd him, so…" The floorboards creak again as Dylan shifts his weight towards the door. "Maybe I should go back? But he might have fallen asleep already, and I wouldn't want to disturb him, so—"

"For god's sake," Arthur snaps. "You're here now; just shut up and lie down. Some of us are trying to sleep."

"Sorry," Dylan says, scurrying to the last remaining sofa and hurriedly bedding down on it.

"Jesus," Alasdair breathes out, amused, into the silence that descends once Dylan has settled himself. "I can't believe we've all ended up being the ones to take the sofa. We're fucking shite excuses for supervillains, aren't we?"


	15. Chapter 15

Although Grandfather had determined that Alasdair wasn't fit to be his second in command almost a decade ago, Alasdair still acts as though he is far too often, ordering them about with easy, unthinking authority as though he truly believes he's their senior in rank and not just in age.

After breakfast, he gathers Arthur, Dylan, and Michael in the den and delegates them tasks for the day with all the conviction of edicts, brooking no dissent: Arthur and Alfred will work in the library, looking for a suitable translation spell; Dylan and Lovino will search the manor for the code book; Michael will keep an eye on Ten and Fourteen again; and Alasdair will accompany Francis to his safe house to fetch the spellbook.

It's an eminently sensible plan, making good use of their limited resources and ensuring that they can keep a careful eye on their 'guests' at all times, so they don't have the chance to go poking their noses where they don't belong. Arthur can't think of a better one himself, but he nonetheless bristles at Alasdair's presumption in unilaterally deciding upon their course of action without even bothering to discuss it with the rest of them first, and dissents purely on principle.

He dissents long and hard, until Alasdair is spluttering incoherently in anger, his face flushed an unhealthy shade of puce, and the normally bottomless well of Dylan's patience drains dry and he snaps at them both to shut up, step back, and go somewhere else to clear their heads and cool off for a while.

Which is as good an excuse as any that isn't obeying Alasdair's commands for Arthur to hole up in the library for a few hours, and he takes advantage of it gladly.

He stops off at the dining room en route to pick up Alfred, who is sitting in exactly the same position in which Arthur had left him earlier, sprawled lax-limbed in his chair, his head tipped back as he stares with glassy eyes up at the ceiling. Clearly, early mornings don't agree with him, but Arthur is hardly in the position to tiptoe conscientiously around his preferences and sensitivities. They have a job to do.

"I'm going to do some research into translation spells," he says. "I could use your help."

Alfred stirs in a series of jerky fits and starts, as though his body is waking itself up piecemeal. First his fingers twitch, then his legs, his eyelids stutter closed, blink open again, and he clears his throat with a rough cough before saying:

"Wha'?" His lips move clumsily around the half-formed word. "But I don't know anything about magic."

"You don't need to," Arthur says, tugging on the sleeve of Alfred's borrowed hoodie until he finally gives into the inevitable and staggers to his feet. "I just need an extra pair of eyes."

Alfred trails a few steps behind him as they make their way through the manor, his feet dragging and yawning gustily at regular intervals, and when they reach the library and Arthur ushers him inside, he only glances around the cavernous room briefly with half-lidded eyes, gaze skipping over the massed volumes of magical knowledge that represent Grandfather's life's work – his crowning achievement – with evident disinterest.

"That's a lot of books," is his only comment.

"Well, yes," Arthur says, nonplussed. "It is a library, after all."

Alfred chuckles. "I know, but… We're not really going to have to read all of these, are we?"

"No, only about half of them; I've already catalogued the rest. Though, I'm afraid, I had to do it all on paper." He retrieves his thick, leather-bound ledger from a nearby shelf and passes it to Alfred. "Grandfather insisted on it. He thinks it's safer."

"So, what am I looking for?" Alfred asks, squinting down at the ledger's yellowing pages as he quickly flicks through them the first few of them.

"Any mention of translation, language, decryption; things of that nature. If you find something, just jot down the name of the book the spell comes from, and I'll look into it in more detail later."

Arthur sets Alfred up at his desk with a pen and fresh pad of paper to hand, and then moves deeper into the stacks in search of likely looking volumes in the piles and boxes of books he hasn't yet sorted through.

The first time his explorations take him towards the front of the library again, Alfred is bent studiously over the ledger, scribbling a note down on the pad. The second time, he's messing around with his phone. The third, he's slouched, boneless, in his seat, and apparently taking a nap.

He opens his eyes readily enough, though, when Arthur approaches the desk with the intent of shaking him awake, and he asks, "You do this for a job, right?"

 _Six days a week, three hundred and sixty-two weeks a year_. "I do," Arthur says.

"Huh." Alfred's huffed exhalation sounds a little surprised, but also a little impressed. "I wouldn't have the patience for it. I'm already going a bit stir crazy, and I've only been doing it for a couple of hours."

"An hour." Arthur corrects him after checking his watch. "Almost."

"I thought I was underestimating at two." Alfred groans, pushing his glasses up to rest on top of his head so he can massage his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "I'm definitely not cut out for this kind of work."

"What work _do_ you do, then?" Arthur asks. "I presume you're not actually a journalist."

"Nothing much since I graduated uni." Alfred shrugs. "A bit of bar work, a few odd jobs here and there. I want to be a superhero full-time, but my mom thinks I'd be better off doing something with my degree."

"She's probably right. Superheroing doesn't pay very well." For supervillains, the wages of sin were actually very lucrative ones, but the League had to rely on what amounted to charitable donations from grateful rescuees. "What did you study?"

"Mechatronic engineering, at Manchester University."

"My alma mater," Arthur says with a smile.

"Yeah?" Alfred suddenly straightens up, his interest clearly piqued. "Which halls were you in?"

He probably wants to trade war stories and fond reminiscences, but Arthur's experience of university life was undoubtedly very different to his own.

"I wasn't," Arthur says. "I stayed here and commuted in."

"Really?" Alfred's accent hasn't faded appreciably to Arthur's ear, but he's obviously been living in England for long enough to have thoroughly absorbed the British conception of relative distances. He seems horrified at the thought.

"It only took me a couple of hours, and Grandfather didn't want me living away from home." Not after what happened with Alasdair. "It was probably for the best, anyhow. Less distractions, so I could concentrate on studying."

And he'd needed that, because Grandfather hadn't allowed him to study history as he'd wanted to, but forced him to do an English degree, which he had much less aptitude for. He'd managed to scrape a first regardless, but only barely and only after taking a viva. Not like Alasdair, who'd breezed through his own degree with seemingly effortless ease. Then again, he'd been allowed to follow his heart, and if he hadn't enjoyed doing so just a little too much, maybe the rest of them would have been granted the same privilege.

"It was probably good preparation for doing _this_." Alfred frowns down at the ledger. "But my degree was a lot more practical. Hands-on. I'm not used to sitting still for so long."

"Well, once you _actually_ make it to two hours, we can take a break, if you like," Arthur suggests grudgingly. He'd much rather carry on straight through to lunch and not waste any more time unnecessarily, but it seems unlikely that Alfred will get much useful work done if they do. "Stretch our legs for a while."

The offering is a paltry one, but it seems to please Alfred well enough. He smiles gratefully and hunkers back down over the ledger with renewed purpose.

Nevertheless, he's obviously an inveterate clock-watcher, because the very second that two hours have elapsed, he hurls his pen down onto the desk, and asks Arthur, "So, what do you guys do for fun around here?"

Between work and practising his magic, Arthur has very little free time, and rarely does anything that he imagines Alfred would consider 'fun'. "We all read a lot. And we watch a bit of telly sometimes."

Alfred's face droops despondently. "Is that it?"

Hobbies are a luxury they're not really afforded nowadays, though Alasdair does go hiking on occasion, hunting for rocks to add to his collection, and Dylan writes more of his god-awful poetry whenever he can.

And Arthur has his pride and joy.

"Well," he says, "I usually work on my car whenever I have a spare moment."

"Yeah?" The lazy upward arc of Alfred's eyebrows suggests idle curiosity. "What kind have you got."

"A Bentley."

Alfred's smile is so bright that it's practically blinding, and he springs eagerly out of his chair. "I want to see it," he says, hurrying out of the library without waiting for Arthur to agree.

Not that he would have said no, in any case. He'd never pass up an opportunity to show her off.  
-

* * *

-  
Grandfather owns cars for every occasion, enough that he could use a different one near every day of the month if the fancy took him, but not one of them is more than five years old, and Arthur considers them all dull, their designs insipid and uninspired. His Bentley shines like a dark jewel in the garage amongst them.

"She's a 1946 Mark VI," he tells Alfred. "The first luxury car Bentley made after the Second World War. She belonged to my great-grandfather, and she'd been left to rot here after he died. Grandfather wasn't interested in having her restored, so I did it myself."

"She?" Alfred asks, his lips lightly curved in amusement. "I thought that was only for ships."

"Maybe so," Arthur says, "but I've always thought of her as a 'she', anyway. My grand old Dame."

The thought sounds unforgivably silly once given voice, existing outside the confines of his own head for the first time, but thankfully Alfred isn't paying him enough attention to have noticed. He's too busily preoccupied in running one of his large, blocky hands over the smooth arc of one of the Bentley's fenders. His touch is gentle, reverential, as though she's something rare and beautiful. He's smudging the paintwork, but Arthur can't find it within himself to tell him to stop.

"She's beautiful," Alfred breathes. "Is she roadworthy?"

"Yes, but I don't take her out very often." Yet another pleasure he is seldom allowed to indulge in. "She's not exactly fuel-efficient. It's too expensive."

Alfred must not pay much attention to that too, because he asks, "Can we go for a drive?"

His eyes grow wide and beseeching, and Arthur can't find it within himself to tell him 'no', either.

"Just a short one," he says.  
-

* * *

-  
The Bentley's engine purrs like a big cat, deep and throaty. It's one of Arthur's favourite sounds in the world and he's missed it. Missed it for far too long. It's been more than a month since he last drove her, and he puts his foot down on the accelerator a little harder than he perhaps should until that purring swells into a roar and he can feel the vibrations of it rumble through his entire body.

"What do you think of her, then?" he asks Alfred, even though his delighted expression would seem to be an answer in and of itself.

"She's amazing," Alfred says, and he laughs, unselfconsciously loud and completely unaffected.

Arthur wants to hear more of that sound, too, so he drives faster and far further than he would normally dare, past the outskirts of Sutton, which is his normal turning point for home, and out into the farmland beyond.

At first, it's liberating, to be travelling beyond the bounds of what would usually be possible for him, but as more and more miles spool by, the more familiar sensation of dread begins to creep up upon him. Because he's been out for too long already, and he would be expecting a phone call from Grandfather by this point in the normal course of things, wanting him to account for his whereabouts, if he hadn't had one of his henchmen trailing him from the start.

His hands start to shake, his stomach clenches cold, and his ribs seem to be shrinking, closing tight around his lungs until it feels like he's choking. His vision starts to blur around the edges.

He slams on the brakes and hunches over the steering wheel, desperately gasping for breath.

One of Alfred's hands settles on his back, between his shoulder blades just below the nape of his neck. "Are you okay?"

His voice is soft, and his touch is feather-light, but it still seems to press down on Arthur too heavily somehow. Too heavy and too much. He wrenches open the door at his side, and then stumbles out to lean against the side of the car, his hands braced against his knees as he forces himself to inhale and exhale long and slow. It's the only thing that ever seems to help at times like this.

Alfred joins him a moment later, standing close enough that the heat of his body warms Arthur's arm, but not quite touching him.

"Panic attack?" he asks sympathetically. "My brother has them sometimes."

Arthur wouldn't know. He's never told anyone that he gets like this every now and again, never mind seen a doctor about it. He just breathes deeply until the feeling passes.

"I've never driven out this far before." He would never have admitted anything of the sort under normal circumstances, but he can't seem to stop the words from spilling out of his mouth now. "Grandfather… Grandfather would never allow it."

He expects Alfred to laugh, not with shocked joy this time, but derisively. Because it no doubt sounds bloody ridiculous: a twenty-five-year-old man who's not permitted to drive more than ten minutes away from his own home. Who's quaking in his fucking boots over having defied that prohibition.

"He's not here now, though, is he?" Alfred says. "He'll never know."

The pressure bearing down on Arthur's sternum lightens a little. No, he'll never know. The… The old bastard's down in London, completely oblivious. All the cameras in the manor have been enchanted to show him exactly what he'd expect to see if he ever cares to look at the feeds: the four of them industriously beavering away at their usual weekday tasks. Arthur disabled the tracking device planted on the Bentley years ago. Alfred's highly unlikely to tell Grandfather about this incredibly minor adventure they embarked on, and Arthur certainly never will.

Arthur's lungs expand in his chest, the pounding of his heart slows, and he decides it's probably safe to straighten up from his crouch. His head swims slightly, but no nausea follows, and his vision gradually clears.

There are nothing but fields for miles around Arthur's unplanned parking spot, and the frost riming the grass glistens in the weak, wintry sunlight. He can't hear anything but the quiet plinking of the Bentley's engine as it cools, and the even quieter sound of Alfred's steady breathing. It's all very peaceful.

Alfred shifts his weight, and his hand comes within a hairsbreadth of brushing Arthur's. If he extended his little finger just a fraction of an inch, he could hook it around Alfred's, perhaps even take hold of his hand.

And perhaps Alfred might want him to, perhaps there _was_ an invitation in the movement, but Arthur doesn't want to presume and risk spoiling the moment.

So, he stands perfectly still and just breathes.


	16. Chapter 16

Last night, Francis had passed out the moment his head hit the pillow and slept deeply and soundly the entire night through.

He's clean, his ill-fitting borrowed clothing is freshly laundered, and his stomach is so full following his hearty – if blandly uninspiring and slightly burnt – breakfast of porridge that it's aching. He can't remember the last time he last ate so many full meals in succession as he has done these past two days.

He feels better than he has done for months, but still Alasdair persists in treating him as though he's some manner of consumptive Victorian waif, liable to pass away in a sad, crumpled heap of blood-speckled pathos if called upon to perform any act more strenuous than staggering between a chaise longue and bed.

"You left your car in Sutton, right?" he asks as they walk through the manor's front door and out into the courtyard beyond. "We'll drive there and pick it up. It's a long walk, otherwise."

"One which has never taken me more than half an hour to complete, even after your grandfather shot me in the thigh that time," Francis says stiffly. "I'm sure I can manage."

"Maybe so, but we're working against the clock here, and…" Alasdair gives him a cursory once over, and his subsequent wince is insultingly pitying. "I'll go fetch my car."

He bustles off towards the garage, and the dreadful cacophony of thumps and metallic screeching that shortly thereafter ensue from the building makes Francis uneasy even before Alasdair's car clatters into view. It's an ancient Ford of some description, mostly powder blue, save for the red bonnet – which had clearly been salvaged from a vehicle in much better condition, as it practically gleams in comparison to the rest of the battered bodywork – and patches of rust that are insidiously creeping out from under the wheel arches.

It judders to a halt in front of Francis, belching a thick cloud of black smoke from its exhaust. Alasdair leans over to open the dented passenger door from the inside, and says, "Hop in, then."

Francis hesitates. "Are you sure it's safe?" he asks.

"Of course!" Alasdair slaps a hand hard against the dashboard, as though in demonstration of the car's robustness, but as the impact causes it to creak mournfully and shake on its axles, it's far from reassuring. "It passed its MOT just last month."  
"And how many bribes did your grandfather have to pay out for that to happen?"

The bristling of Alasdair's thick eyebrows and his rising colour suggest deep offense at the question, but when he speaks again, his voice is perfectly level and calm. "You'll be fine," he insists. "Get in."

Even if Francis _were_ at his physical peak, Alasdair would doubtless still be capable of simply picking him up and _putting_ him in the car against his very reasonable objections, so continued resistance seems pointless in his weakened state. Fighting his better judgement all the while, Francis climbs into the passenger seat and buckles himself in. The seatbelt also creaks in an alarming manner as he pulls it across his chest.

Alasdair grins at him and then puts his foot down on the accelerator. The engine squeals in response and keeps on squealing as they trundle across the courtyard, down the manor's drive, and out onto the road that leads into Sutton.

"It only cost me four hundred quid," Alasdair informs Francis, patting the dashboard again and sounding unreasonably proud of himself. "The bloke selling it wanted seven hundred, but I managed to talk him down."

"He probably couldn't believe his luck even at four," Francis says. The car smells even worse than it sounds, and the ride is one of the bumpiest he's ever had the misfortune to experience, the impromptu getaway from the scene of a heist he'd once been forced to make on a camel very much included. "You were robbed."

"Well, I only ever drive into the village, or to Chester and back, so it suits me just fine." Alasdair shrugs. "I suppose you're still driving a Lamborghini or something?"

"Not quite," Francis has to admit, abashed. "I've had to downgrade. Given my current circumstances, it seemed prudent."

The sports cars he preferred always drew far too much attention, but never Alasdair's. Even when they were teenagers, he never displayed the slightest interest whenever Francis was showing off his latest acquisition which otherwise made Lovino and Alasdair's brothers green with envy.

His gaze lingers on the Renault Clio Francis has been reduced to when they pull up behind it, however, his small smile radiating happy approval, as though it represented the true pinnacle of automotive engineering and not them.

"It's nice," he says. "Better than any of your old ones. I bet it gets great miles to the gallon."

"Hmm," Francis says noncommittally, because he really has no idea whether it does or not. He never pays attention to such things. In a bid to distract Alasdair from making any further technical observations he is ill-equipped to weigh in on, he hurries off to retrieve his scarf from the backseat of the Renault, where he'd discarded it the day before after removing it from Alfred.

"Here," he says, handing it to Alasdair, "you should wear this." When Alasdair doesn't move and just blinks down at the scarf, looking puzzled, he clarifies, "As a blindfold. I wasn't giving you fashion advice."

They definitely don't have time for _that_. Francis would need at least an hour or two, or more likely the best part of a day. Although the suits Alasdair habitually wears are clearly expensive and presumably bespoke, they never seem to fit him well, the material pulling tight over his wide shoulders and broad thighs, and his taste in ties is baffling.

"Ah, okay," Alasdair says. He sits in the passenger seat of Francis' car, and ties the scarf around his eyes. "We all set to go, then?"

They are.

Francis takes a long, circuitous route to his safe house out of habit, taking numerous false turns and looping diversions, even though, for once, he is certain they aren't being followed. Consequently, the two-mile drive from Sutton takes them close to quarter of an hour, which he's also certain will fool Alasdair into thinking they've travelled far further afield than they have in actuality.

As soon as he steps out of the car, though, he says, "So, I'm guessing your safe house is hidden under that old, abandoned barn on Brian Armitage's land, down by the river."

Francis' heart skips a beat, stuttering in his chest. "What makes you think that?" he asks, striving to sound disinterested and blasé.

"I've lived here my entire life, Francis," Alasdair says, "I know my way around, even when you're trying to confuse me. I can hear the water running over there" – he points to the east – "the A road into Chester over there" – he points west – "and besides, this scarf makes a crappy blindfold." He flashes Francis a lopsided, abashed smile. "It's practically transparent. I suppose it'd probably work better if it wasn't quite so sunny, but I can pretty much just see the barn right there," he finishes, gesturing towards it.

"You might as well take it off, then," Francis says, cursing himself for being so careless and wondering, too, whether Alfred had made the same observation when they left the safe house yesterday afternoon but had neglected to mention it. The League might already be drawing in.

Not that it really matters, at this late stage. If they can bring down George Kirkland, he'll have no reason to ever return here after they've recovered the spellbook. The habit of subterfuge is a well-engrained one by now, however, and he still has to fight back the urge to flee when Alasdair slips off the blindfold and glances around himself.

"An underground bunker?" Alasdair guesses, and guesses correctly. "Did you have it built?"

"My mother did," Francis says. "A couple of years before she disappeared. I suspect she wanted to be able to keep a closer eye on your grandfather."

"And the people who worked on it?"

"Paid handsomely for their time and their silence." As is best practice in the Guild, for those with a more modern approach to supervillainy. The more old-fashioned members would have had them all killed, but Francis' mother was never a murderer.

"The plans?"

"Destroyed."

"Good," Alasdair says, nodding firmly. "You've been as safe as you can be, then. Shall we go down?"

The barn is almost pitch-black inside despite the brightness of the day outside, and the air is dank and musty. Francis had carefully stripped it of anything that might be of any interest to passing rural explorers, throwing away all the mangled bits of broken farm machinery that had strewn the place when he moved in, and leaving only a mouldering bale of hay and a few sheets of plywood that he uses to conceal the safe house's trapdoor from easy view.

He pushes them aside, unlocks the door, and throws it open. "After you," he says, inclining his head towards the steep set of stairs that are revealed as the overhead lights flicker into life below their feet.

Alasdair complies readily, presenting his unprotected back to Francis without question as they descend the stairs. His grandfather would doubtless be horrified by such behaviour, but, then again, Alasdair has never seemed to see him as a viable threat. As Francis has never once been overpower him without resorting to his darts on those rare occasions that their confrontations had become physical in the past, he might well – much to Francis' chagrin – be correct in that assessment.

Once they reach the safe house proper, Alasdair looks around himself with a great deal less interest than Alfred had displayed upon his first sight of the place, at least until his gaze alights on Francis' painting. That, he studies with the same expression as he had the Renault: both fascinated and admiring.

"Is this the one you stole from the National Gallery?" he asks. "You told Lovino that it was your favourite."

"It is." Francis is shocked that he remembers. He hadn't appeared to be listening when Francis had that conversation with Lovino, almost eight years ago now, and he'd barely glanced at the photograph of the painting Francis had tried to share with him. "Do you like it?"

"I do," Alasdair says at length, "but probably not in the right way."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't tell if it's a good example of the movement, or its particularly well-accomplished, or anything like that." Alasdair's shoulders curl into a defensive hunch around his ears. "It's just… I think it's beautiful."

Francis' heart swells. The man might have some faint traces of good taste, after all. "And that's all that matters," he says. "Art is meant to be enjoyed, you know."

"Right," Alasdair says, though he doesn't sound especially convinced. He wheels away from the painting. "So, the book?"

"It's in my study," Francis says, and though he doesn't invite Alasdair to accompany him, he plods along after him, anyway, and then stands silently to one side as Francis opens his safe.

It takes him a minute or two to disengage all its many locks, and when he turns back towards Alasdair again, he has taken up one of the sheets of paper Francis had left strewn across his desk after showing them to Alfred.

It's the list he had made of George Kirkland's potential victims.

Alasdair's face is blank as he stares down at it, but his hands are clenched so tightly around the paper that it has torn a little at the edges. "Have you found any evidence that Grandfather had my parents killed?" he asks in a horribly flat tone.

"No," Francis rushes to assure him. "I just presumed that—"

"You probably presumed right," Alasdair says. "I didn't used to think so. Who wants to believe that of their own flesh and blood? But after what happened with Caitlin…"

He trails into silence so absolute that Francis can't even hear him breathing anymore, and his face drains of blood.

Francis gives him a moment to compose himself and regather his thoughts before gently prompting, "Caitlin?"

He's never heard that name in association with the Kirklands before, and he's been researching the family's connections for years.

"My sister," Alasdair says quietly. "My twin sister. You won't have heard of her, though. Grandfather made sure to wipe every damn record of her existence after she ran away, and he won't stand for anyone talking about her."

Francis hasn't heard so much as a _rumour_ about her. Grand-père Kirkland must have been exceedingly thorough about his work.

"When did she leave?" he asks, intrigued but not really expecting an answer. Alasdair had looked pained enough just to be saying her name, and he likely will not want to dwell on her further.

But Alasdair surprises him by saying, "When we were sixteen." His words are directed solely at the paper, as though he's no longer aware – or trying his best to forget – that Francis is still in the room and listening to him speak. "I was supposed to go with her, but I… I couldn't go through with it in the end. I wish I could say that I was worried about what might happen to my brothers if I left, but really I just wasn't brave enough. I chickened out and she didn't.

"I know it's probably hard to believe now, but we used to have a normal life despite Grandfather and all of his Guild shit. _We_ used to be normal. I was pretty popular at school, I used to play sports, I went out with my friends, but after Caitlin, all of that stopped.

"Grandfather wouldn't let any of the rest of us out of his sight then, and if he couldn't watch us personally, he'd delegate some of his henchmen to do it. We were allowed to go to school and back on our own, but that was about it.

"I was amazed he let me go down to Oxford for uni, but I don't think he could bear to pass up the chance to boast about me getting in. And I stupidly thought I was free of him at last, that I might actually have a say in my own fucking life, but when I tried, he…" Alasdair's hands tighten, and more of the paper rips beneath them. "He hauled my back to the manor by my ear, sat me down in one of the interrogation rooms, and told me if I ever even thought about trying to get away again, he'd have Caitlin tracked down and killed."

"She was alive?" Francis says, unthinkingly. He had assumed she'd not long survived her flight from the manor.

"Still is, as far as I know," Alasdair says. "I last heard from her a month ago, and I don't think I've done anything since then to piss Grandfather off enough to make good on his promise.

"Anyway, after he threatened Caitlin, he told me that he'd had people murdered before, and from the way he said it, the look in his eye, I just knew he wasn't talking about any of the other people on this list. He meant my parents.

"They'd been trying to escape, too: squirrelling money away, making plans with friends who weren't part of the fucking Guild. One of them must have let something slip, though, because Grandfather found out and he was _furious_.

"He doesn't really like me or my brothers, never has, and I'm not sure he even loves us, but he thinks of us as _his_. His _legacy_ , and I imagine he couldn't bear the thought of losing us.

"Mum was his only child, and she adored him despite everything. I'd thought – deluded myself – that that would have been enough to save her, but, in that moment, I realised it hadn't been, and that he wouldn't even hesitate over doing the same thing to Caitlin. So, I just… gave up, then. And I've been giving up ever since."

Alasdair's head is bowed low, his spine bowed in a tired arch, and he looks weary and impossibly small.

Francis reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder, and he doesn't quite know himself whether the touch is meant to offer comfort, an apology, or a simple acknowledgement. Either way, Alasdair shies away from it, and so violently that it almost unbalances them both.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm not used to…" He draws in a deep breath and lets it out in a long sigh. "Have you got the book, then?"

An obvious deflection, but Francis suspects Alasdair will only clam up all the tighter if he presses the matter. He lets it slide, for the moment. "I have," he says. "Your grandfather was storing this bag alongside it, so I took it, too. I'm not sure what to make of it, though."

Alasdair takes the bag from him and peers inside. "Stinks of sulphur," he says, screwing his nose up in disgust. "I'm not sure what the metal is myself, but the yellow stones are spent magic."

At Francis' baffled look he explains, "Whenever you use magic, there's a sort of… mystical fallout. Usually, it's just manifests itself in the brimstone smell and a bit of dust, but occasionally you do get flakes of whatever the hell this stuff is, if you've expended a lot of energy in the casting.

"I've never seen pieces as big as this before. I couldn't tell you which spell made them, but it was definitely a fucking powerful one."


End file.
